Well, here it is, a collection of tips and tricks to get you ahead with FIFA 12’s scouting system.
Contents
1. Scouting outline
2a. How to spot a great player
2b. Promoting players from your academy
3a. Save, reload, success
3b. Keep tabs on your options
4. Find out a scouted player’s actual OVR
Before I begin, take note that this guide advises users to make multiple saves and to quit and reload saves in order to get better scouting results. It’s a good idea to do the following two things:
1) Delete the FIFA autosave file. Don’t worry, this won’t mess up your game. The autosave file is a separate save file automatically created by the game, so deleting it doesn’t mean you’re deleting your career save. I suggest you delete it because if (using any of the methods described below) you get unsatisfactory results you don’t want to be stuck with them thanks to the game being autosaved! So you need to go to My FIFA > FIFA 12 Profile > Save/Load/Delete > Delete, and delete the autosave file (it’ll have autosave in the name).
2) I always create regular backup saves, and have 2 copies of the most up-to-date save (i.e. called “Career 1” and “Career 2”). Sometimes FIFA recreates the autosave file (e.g. after you play a game rather than simming it), so in case anything goes wrong you’ve got a very recent backup at the ready. This is especially important when it comes to finding good scouting results (see below). If you need to reload, just load up the backup copy and save over the original save so that both saves are now where you want them to be.
Anyway, on with the guide…
It’s been described a lot on the FIFA forums, so I’ll just briefly run through it. In FIFA 12 you can hire up to 3 scouts that you then send off to different parts of the globe in search of young talent. Each scout is rated out of 5 in both experience and judgment. What seems to have been ascertained from the FIFA 12 forums is that a scout’s experience level determines the quality of players he finds, whilst his judgment determines how accurate his reports are. That is, if a scout with 5 star judgment finds a 14 year old with potential 72-91 and so does a scout with 2 star judgment, the 5 star scout is more likely to have got this prediction right. However, lower judgment scouts can still find great players, it’s just more rare. The idea has also been put forward that judgment matters more than experience, since a scout with 5 star experience and 4 star judgment costs more than one whose attributes are the other way around. This has yet to be confirmed.
Your “choose a scout” screen will have 5 to choose from, varying in nationality and experience/judgment level. Here’s a little tip that’s been picked up by LeBron on the forums – if you’re looking for 5*/5* (five star experience and judgment) scouts and there are none in your list, simply save, then advance a week and 5 new randomly-generated scouts will appear. If there are no 5*/5* scouts there, simply quit, reload the save and try again. Do be aware that 5*/5* scouts are very expensive, however. 4 star and even 3 star scouts can still produce future-superstars, as can lesser scouts (but it gets increasingly harder to do so the fewer stars your scout has).
Your scout will recommend certain players to you by highlighting their name in orange. I personally totally ignore this, as I often have my scout recommend terrible players and ignore potentially great ones. In one case I was scouting a player for several months, and on the latest report my scout recommended him. I then reloaded the save and this time around my scout decided not to recommend him! Nothing about the player had changed, which makes me think the recommendation system is probably random.
It is generally acknowledged that certain countries contain more potentially-great players than others. These regions are, more or less, Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. If you send a scout to these regions you are more likely to find better results. However, don’t write off scouting in other regions. Two of the best players I have scouted came from China and Scotland respectively, with the latter having 88 dribbling when he was only 16! Regions other than this “big 7” are also cheaper to scout, so this may be a good option if you are managing a club with more strict finances.
It is often a good idea to send a scout to look in his own country. If, say, you have an English scout, when you hover over England on the scouting screen a little star will appear next to the country name. This means that this is his country of expertise. He will not necessarily find better players here, but his reports will be more accurate, meaning you will have a better idea of who to sign and who not to. To illustrate how this works, my Chinese scout found better players in Spain than in his own country, but his reports from China would have been more accurate than those from Spain, and therefore less of a gamble.
Scouted players themselves will be between 14 and 16 years old. Once you sign them to your Youth Academy their potential and OVR ranges will continue to narrow down until the potential range is 6 digits apart (e.g. 73-79, 82-88, etc) and the OVR range is 4 digits apart (e.g. 61-65, 57-61, etc). Once this happens these values will not narrow down any further. At this stage players begin to grow, so you may notice a player’s OVR has gone from 61-65 to 62-66 one month down the line. It should be noted that the maximum potential that a player can have in your academy is 85-91. Once a scouted player reaches 16 he will be available to be signed to your first team. I would recommend keeping them in your academy for as long as possible so that when they leave it they have a better chance of challenging for a first team place. Every now and again your scouted players may tell you they want to join the first team or they’ll quit. An easy solution to this problem is to save after every game, then if you get this message simply quit and reload. It appears these messages are randomly generated once a player reaches 16, so the chances are it won’t reappear once you reload.
So now you know how scouting works, how do you know who to sign?
2a. How to spot a great player
Your scout will report back to you once a month with a short list of players for you to consider. The report will list the player’s name, age, how long they’ve been scouted for, a rough estimate of the OVR and their potential, their strengths, and a few other details such as their height and weight. Usually you will be presented with a list of around 4 to 8 players. In order to find the best players you must consider a combination of player potential, OVR and age. I will outline each of these factors, then give some examples.
The first thing to look out for is the player’s potential. Anyone with a maximum potential value of between 88 and 91 is likely to be exceptionally good. So, if you find a player whose potential is predicted to be anywhere from 68-91 to 76-91, I would recommend signing them. Any lower, such as 62-91 or 65-86, I would recommend scouting them further to get a better idea of how good they will turn out. Next month your scout’s report will have narrowed these values, and if their max potential comes back any lower than 82 or 83, reject the player. He probably won’t even reach that potential. If you get players with potential of, for example, 56-69 or 62-78, don’t bother.
However, many people make the mistake of only considering a player’s potential outline; his actual OVR outline is just as important (if not more important).
If you really only want to sign the best of the best, you should only consider signing players whose OVR outline has a minimum value of 50. So, if you find a player whose OVR is predicted to be 50-70 or above (e.g. 52-72, 54-76, etc), I would recommend signing them. A player’s actual OVR is often halfway between these values, but more often it is around 5-8 points above it. Still, this is the upper tier of scouted players, and as such they are quite rare. I would therefore recommend at least scouting them for another month, and if you feel confident that they will be good enough, sign them.
However, never sign someone whose minimum OVR projection is in the 30s. For example, if you find a 14 year old who has a player potential of 70-91 but whose OVR projection is 35-43, don’t sign him, he won’t be good enough when he joins the first team. The likelihood is he’ll have an OVR of late 40s to early 50s by the time he’s 16, which probably won’t be good enough to break into your first team. You can try loaning him out, but if anyone takes him he probably won’t get into their first team either, so won’t grow.
If, of course, an OVR of late 40s to early 50s is good enough to get into your first team, you may feel his potential is enough to justify signing him. Just be aware that:
- His max OVR projection will probably go down the longer you scout him / have him in your youth academy, so he may not end up as good as you first think
- You will scout better players than him, so it may be best to continue scouting him while you make up your mind
The final thing to consider is age. The very best players will have a combination of the best areas of the above 2 points (e.g. OVR 52-72, potential 74-91) and will be 14 years old. These are the rarest of the rare, and you should sign them immediately, the likelihood is they will develop to become world beaters (given enough playing time, of course).
So, you’ve found a player with potential 68-91 – great! However, he’s 16 years old. In this case, I would scout him further to see if his potential and OVR are still as high once your scout has a better idea of his ability. The thing is, at 16 he won’t have long to develop in your academy until he starts pushing to join the first team. If his actual OVR doesn’t turn out to be as good as you thought, he may not be able to contend with your first team, and you may have wasted your time on him.
If that same player (16 years old, potential 68-91) has an OVR outline of anything less than 50-70 (or 50-68 if you’re feeling generous), don’t sign him, he definitely won’t be good enough.
So, here are some examples of players that I’ve found recently and whether or not I’d recommend signing them:
As you can see, this player has a very good potential of 66-91. However, his OVR is 35-47, which isn’t great. Trust me, you will find players with potential 66-91 and much better OVR ranges than this. Also note that he’s 15, so has less time to grow than an equivalent 14 year old would. I wouldn’t sign this player. Now for example 2:
On the same report is this player. Like the previous player, he has a high potential – in fact this time it’s higher, at 72-91. The main difference is that his OVR range is much better at 55-73. This means his OVR will be roughly 64 (halfway between 55 and 73), but is probably actually a little lower. The kicker is that this guy is 14, so has loads of time to develop his already good skills. An OVR like this, combined with his age and potential, is awesome. This player is a definite sign in my book.
2b. Promoting players from your academy
You can promote youth players from age 16. So when it comes to doing this, what sort of OVR should you look out for in 16 year olds? Well, I’ve got a couple of 16 year olds I recently promoted to the first team. Both had potentials of 84-90, one was rated 64 and the other 65. This is perfectly acceptable for a 16 year old – they will both develop into excellent players, at least 84 OVR with enough playing time. Sometimes you’ll get a 16 year old who is rated in the 70s – this is exceedingly rare, so play him as much as you can so he develops! But ultimately it depends on a combination of OVR, potential and what your team looks like. In my youth academy I had two 16 year old LBs, one was rated 66 but with potential 79-85, the other was rated 64 with potential 82-88. In this case, the 64 rated one, even though his OVR is lower, may be the one to promote – he will probably grow quicker than the other one.
If you’re not sure if a player is good enough at 16, leave him in your academy for a while. By this point his OVR and potential have probably narrowed down as much as they’re going to, but by leaving him in the academy you can assess whether you actually need him in the team. If you do, promoted him; if not, release him.
I’ve been asked about how a scout’s idea of a player changes over time. Before a player is promoted, his OVR and potential will vary a lot, but don’t worry. If you find someone whose potential is 72-91, then after a month of scouting it’s down to 69-86, don’t panic – I’ve had this plenty of times where a month later his potential goes back up again. It’s just part of the scout’s process of narrowing down the player’s potential – his actual OVR and potential haven’t been affected, it’s just that the scout is basically still working out how good the player is/will be.
Secondly, the reports a scout sends back on a player after a few months of watching him work on the same basis as if you’d signed the player and then had his values narrowed down in the youth academy. The only difference is that signing the player costs money, and watching him for longer increases the chances of him being poached by other clubs. The easy way around this is to save after you’ve found him (and told your scout to keep watching him), then reload if he gets poached – because this seems to work in the same way as youth players wanting to leave the academy (i.e. random), he probably won’t get poached next reload. Also, your scout’s reports may give this player different OVR and potential values upon reloading, but don’t worry – as I said above, his actual stats haven’t changed, just your scout’s guess as to what they are.
It should be noted that the weak foot star rating of scouted players can improve, albeit very slowly. Similarly, their attacking and defensive work rates can improve too. However, it does not appear that scouted players can improve their skill moves rating; at least, no one has yet been able to work out how to improve it if it is indeed possible to do so.
Often you’ll get scout reports where there are no potentially good players. Bummer. Wouldn’t it be great if you could try again? Well, there’s a very simple way to do it.
- Find out what day your scout(s) reports back to you and note it down
- Save your game the day before he is due to report back to you
- If there is no one good on your scout report, simply quit the game, reload the save and try again
- Repeat as necessary
If you find someone you’re not sure about, or you find someone good but not great, instead of quitting after your scout’s report, tell your scout to keep watching the player(s) in question. Then create a new save, call it “Test 1” or something similar, then quit and reload your original save (i.e. before your scout’s report arrives). Then if you find someone better you can compare him to the player(s) in your “Test 1” save and decide which to go for. Repeat this as many times as you want until you find someone you’re happy with.
To make things easier, I’ll show you how I keep track of the players I’m considering in various saves. Yes, it’s a little nerdy, but it’ll help you out if you choose to use this reload method. Below is the table I make in Microsoft Word, with some examples that I found:
Incidentally, the players here are some of the ones in the previous pictures. Anyway, I have created columns for all the key data, including a player’s position, name, OVR outline, actual OVR (I’ll come back to this later), potential, age, where they are from, and what their strengths are. I have also included the name of each save so I know where to find my scouted players.
Word is useful because you can also put in little notes to yourself. Mine here reads “Definitely a striker – long shots 75, shot power 74, finishing 67, but dribbling 55 and crossing 55!” So in this example I scouted a winger whose striker stats (finishing, shot power, etc) were better than his winger stats (dribbling, crossing, etc), so in this case his OVR may be deceptive, as he may be better as a striker than as a winger. The opposite is sometimes true – a player listed as a striker whose strengths are good for wingers. This is why using a table like this can be useful when considering whether your scouted players are worth signing.
So, in this example you can see that “Test 2” reaped better results than “Test 1”, so I went for “Test 2”.
But how, you ask, can you know exactly what a player’s OVR is before you’ve signed him to your first team? Well, I’ll explain that now, because it is one of the key things that helps me decide whether or not to sign a player.
4. Find out a scouted player’s actual OVR
Here is a great trick I found out to work out how good your scouted players actually are. Sure, you get a little outline of how good they are, but that can be up to 20 digits apart at times, which is no help. So here’s the secret.
Before you start, make sure all your saves are up to date, then delete FIFA’s career mode autosave file. This isn’t as scary as it sounds, it’s just an auto-generated save file and deleting it won’t cause you to lose your career. Go to My FIFA > FIFA 12 Profile > Save/Load/Delete > Delete, and delete the autosave file (it’ll have autosave in the name). The reason you do this is because you don’t want to sign what turns out to be a crappy player, then find out FIFA has saved over your old file and that you’re stuck with him!
Once you’ve done this, use the save, reload method as described in point 4. Make sure if you find a potentially good player you tell your scout to keep watching him, don’t sign him yet! Note down the player’s details in the table I showed you above (noting down his strengths is particularly important, as this’ll help identify him later). Now, after you’ve done this, create a new save (“Test 1”). Now you can sign him. Once you’ve done this, immediately go to your Youth Academy and release him. Go to the Buy Player screen and search the free agents for him (it helps if you search for his position too). If your player was a Spanish ST whose strengths were finishing, long shots and shot power (in that order), look for a Spanish ST who matches these criteria.
Note: your player’s age and name will have changed. If you released a 14 year old called Xabi Lopez there won’t be anyone with that name in the free agents. Your player will be there, however, just under a different name. He will always be 16.
Once you’ve found a 16 year old whose position, nationality and strengths match those of your just-released player, you know you’ve found him. You will also notice that you can see his OVR! This will be his OVR at the age he was when you released him, not the OVR he will be when he’s (legitimately) 16. This is incredibly useful because if you find a player with potential 70-91 but whose OVR (using this method) turns out to be 54, I wouldn’t bother signing him. If, however, his potential is 70-91 and his OVR is 64, then I would sign him. So this method can make all the difference.
The reason I say tell your scout to keep watching the players (rather than sign them straight away) is mainly because if you find 2 good players and only have space for one in your academy you can find out the actual OVR of one of them, quit, reload, then do the same with the other player.
Note: all a player’s stats (including skill moves, weak foot ability, plus all the normal stats like finishing, long shots, etc) will always be the same no matter how many times you reload. So if you find a great winger with only 1 star skills, then unfortunately you’re stuck with that. On the plus side, if you find one with 4 star moves then you’re stuck with that too! No need to worry about losing that if you reload. The impact of this depends if you sim or not. I sim all the time, so skill moves and weak foot ability don’t matter to me. If you play lots, however, it may be more important.
Anyway, if, using this method, you find a 14 year old whose OVR turns out to be 63 or above, sign him – he will be a star. If you find one whose OVR is 65 or over – well, I don’t need to tell you what to do! These are very rare, however. My best find was a 66 rated 14 year old CB, but I’ve also found 65, 64 and 63 rated 14 year olds using a combination of the ‘save, reload’ method and this method.
Sometimes, if you’re using multiple saves to compare scouted players, one player’s potential will be higher than the other’s, but his actual OVR will be lower. This was the case in the table image I posted above. In this instance it is up to you who you go for.
Well, I hope this guide has been useful to you. Just be patient and follow these tips and you’re sure to find some world-beating talent that will enhance your career mode immeasurably.
FIFA 12 Scouting Tips & Tricks 
NICE WORK; THIS HELPED ME A LOT
This is good thanks:) and my best find was a 14 year old German CB (Jan Zoller), kept him in my acdemy, when i promoted him, 72 OVR, after 2 games 73 OVR then i saved over that career with another by accident:(
Dang! He sounded awesome, shame you saved over the CM
I just started playing fifa 12 and your post has helped me to refine my scouting technique. good read. thanks!
No problem, I’m glad I could help 🙂
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do you get better results if you search for specifics? ie. attack minded / playmaker? or just don’t narrow?
Well I don’t think searching for specifics will increase your chances of success, but if you really want, say, a CB then search for that and use the techniques in this guide.
You’re just as likely to get great players whether you search for specifics or not – it’s just that if you searched for wingers you might get 2 superstar wingers, whilst if you searched any you might get 2 superstars of any random position.
In short, searching for specifics just tells your scout what position to look out for, it doesn’t necessarily help him find better players.
I seem too always use the specifics, just because i tend too find about 3 players in 9 months that i will end up keeping and promoting up too first team, even if it is just too loan out and then sell on. it makes some money back on the 9mil investment on 5* scouts. What i am planning on trying soon is only getting english scouts, i am english, my next career mode, when i complete this one, i will try it. I tend too youse championship teams or Bolton or Everton, not the big teams. Just so it does challenge me more to create my ideal team. The best player i have found was on a general search and he is a LM right footed, 1 star skill move and 3 star weak foot. He is now 80, with the potential too reach around 90 i think.
At first I just looked in the big locations, but now I’m trying to make it more realistic. I’m using Sheffield United, so (mostly) scouting in England; it just seems more realistic. I’m not some flag-waving nationalist 😛 just felt it’d seem more real then Sheff United drafting in 6 Brazilian youngsters.
I don’t often search specifics because most of the time I don’t know what position I want, I’m just looking for talent. If I scout once my team has started to take shape then I’ll look for specifics to fit in with what I need.
I’ve noticed that other teams can somehow scout players from places like Jamaica, Cyprus, Bosnia Herzegovina, etc. Places that can’t be found when i try to scout. dude wtf i wanna jamaican player and a costa rican player and a saudi arabian player and a zimbabwean player and a cambodian player
Ha! Yeh I’m not sure how they manage that, but I wouldn’t worry. Scouted players are randomly generated, it’s not like you’re missing out on that Bosnian diamond hiding out there. You’re likely to find just as good a player anywhere else (and of course you can improve your chances with the reloading method in this guide 😉 )
no dude i dont care about how good they are i know i’ll find a superstar either way but i want to build a team of jamaican players
Thanks for the nice manual!
But I keep getting a problem contracting the high potentials?! Here’s the situation:
I’ve scouted a top player (potential i think 85-91, OVR now is 66-71) and he is 16.
But whenever i want to promote him to the first team, he keeps resigning my contract offers, cause he wants higher wages! I offered him 300 000 a week, just to test, but he still didn’t go for it.
I tried finding this on several forums, and I found people with the same problem, everybody keeps saying I have to allocate my budget, but i allready done that. I have enough money to pay his high wages, and his signing fee.
This is the second time this happened, I let the first one go, and now and cannot find him in the free agents list, or anywhere else in the game?!
I hear that a new patch came out to solve this problem, but till today it still doesn’t work.
Do you know how i can solve this problem?
Thanks in advance!
Release him & sign him from free agents
Wait a few weeks before trying to sign him again. I did the same thing with the wage by a high valued player and he also rejects each time. Eventually after trying a couple of times he signed with 15.000 p.w. which still is alot but if the talent is there, it will repay itself.
Try and wait til the beginning of next season during the transfer window. For me, it always works. I had a 16 year old CB (Jannis Ulreich) from Germany who was a 69 and i kept offering him wages, until i offered him 1 mil in wages and still denied! I then waited until the transfer window and offered him 1000 a week and he agreed. This has helped me with all my players and saves me a lot of money. Hopefully this will work for you
wait until next season and promote him then. works for me
Never mind, as soon as I ended the season, the youth player accepted the contract.
For a wage of 10 000.
Very strange!
Yes it is very strange. There seem to be 2 possible solutions:
1) Change the amount of years on the contract. If the default contract for him is, say, £6,000 for 3 years, put it up to 4 years and he usually accepts. You shouldn’t have to change the weekly wage. However, I have heard from some people that the patch means that you can’t raise the contract length over 3 years, which would mean this solution wouldn’t work if you’ve downloaded the patch. But I don’t know if that’s right because I haven’t downloaded the patch yet.
2) Do what you did and wait until the end of the season. Did you have to offer another contract near the end of the season, or did a random message just pop up saying he’d accepted a contract offer?
Also, take a look at this article I made, it covers this problem as well as some others: https://fifa12scoutingtips.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/help-with-developing-youth-players/
Hey! Very nice guide! I have a few questions aswell, hope you can shed some light!
1) I’ve noticed other teams just gets weaker and weaker. Will there be noe replacement for top players in other teams? For instance, won’t there be a replacement for messi, ronaldo, robben, ribery, iniesta, xavi etc, when they get older and loose skill? By replacement i mean younger players with the same skill level, not exact but top notch. I really hope this will happen, because if it doesn’t it’s really no point in playing more than 8 seasons or so..
Hope you understand, a little bad english there!
2) When my youth players want to leave, i offer them contracts. But as i play as Arsenal FC i have only found one (CB) good enough at 17 to play regulary for my first team. The problem is that the players i list for loan is not wanted by any clubs, although all have more that 60 OVR!
3) Can a player improve in skill level (stars)? My promoted youth players only have 1-2 skill stars, which is a bit to weak for an attacker imo!
Thanks for the guide!
Again sorry for bad english!
No problem!
1) I think a regen of the retired player appears at the end of the season once they’ve retired. I’ve never had this happen to me, but I’ve noticed it on other teams (i.e. a player with the same height/weight stats as the retired player, same nationality, aged about 17 or so). The problem is that AI teams don’t seem to account for a player’s potential, so this player won’t be played and so won’t improve. Thus once all the good players have retired all teams will just be left with a load of undeveloped players. Some players on AI teams with high potential do get playing time and so develop into amazing players, but others don’t. If you use Arsenal this can be a problem, as you have so many high-potential players that you don’t have space for them all!
2) I think the trick is to be patient. If you have a player who isn’t good enough for the first team yet, play him anyway, he won’t improve otherwise. If he’s got high potential he’ll grow quickly and soon will be good enough for the first team. If you go to loan a player out, make sure to send them to a team that needs them (that is, a team where they will get in the starting lineup) so that they have as much chance as possible of playing (and thus improving). Still, loaned players usually don’t grow more than 1-2 points per season.
3) No, a youth player’s skill rating will never improve. Apparently their weak foot ability does, however (albeit slowly). This isn’t so much of a problem for me seeing as I sim my games (and rarely use skill moves when I do play games). However, I know it can be very frustrating having a winger with amazing dribbling skills but only 1 star skill moves!
Hope this helps. And thanks!
Can you give the recommended OVR ranges for players who have are already 15 n 16?
I would say if a player’s OVR spread has a minimum value of around 52 (e.g. 52-72, 53-73, 51-80, etc) (regardless of age) they will be decent. Always do the release trick to check their age, I’d say these are probably the minimum OVRs you’d want for each age:
14: 60 or 61
15: 62
16: 64
Although if you find a 14 year old with 58 OVR and potential 85-91, sign him! Same if you find a 16 year old with 62 OVR but the same potential. If they have a high potential they will grow quickly, having a high OVR is just a booster.
And having said all that, players with initial OVR ranges of, say, 48-66 or 46-64 can still turn out to be very good. And those examples I gave above for each age (e.g. 14: 60 or 61) are for if you want to find the very, very best players. You will find plenty of very good players with lower OVRs than those stated above, so don’t totally discount them if you find them.
Hope that all made sense! 🙂
Thank you very much 🙂
By the way, is the length of scouting would help the scout finding better players?
And i just curious, are the scouted players can grow over their potential? because i heard in a forum that someone got a player with 85-91 potential and now the player OVR is 97.
hi
quick question the OVR ratings you have given for different age = 14=60/61, 15=62 and 16=64 is that there minimum potential
What I mean is if you release a player and see his OVR in the free agents, those are the minimum OVRs you’d want for each respective age. Of course, that’s probably only true for players who become the best of the best, don’t worry if a player’s OVR is slightly below that at that age.
Potential is also very important; if a player’s OVR is 58 at age 14 but his potential is 85-91 then you should definitely sign him, he’ll grow quickly and make up the ground.
Well yes it would because the scout has more time to find good players. But because it’s all randomly generated you could of course find the perfect player in a 3 month search. I usually do a 6 month search, but it’s up to you – you could do a 9 month search in one country or three 3 month searches in three different countries.
Scouted players probably can – non-scouted players definitely can if you play them enough and if they play well enough. However, don’t believe that guy who said his scouted player grew to 97, that’s nonsense. The highest OVR potential range a scouted player can get is 85-91, but they could maybe grow to 92 (although that’d be extremely rare).
i’ve gotten four over 97 bro Dembe Offei LM from Nigeria, Rafa Lopez RM from Argentina, Chris Occean CM from canada, and Abbas Alzeshi ST from Egypt, but its taken me years, its possible though, by year 2032 you’ll have some reach it
hi, just wondering if anyone knew how to delete the update when you can’t find it. I know it might sound ridiculous but i have tried to delete it so the growth of my scouted players speed up but i really can’t find it and i am sure i have it
What country is the best for scouting? I’ve scouted ghana, germany, france, usa, italy, belguim, argentina, brazil, spain, england and japan so far and there isnt a clear best country.
I think you said it best. The quality of your scout seems to matter much more than the country you scout in. The ‘big 9’ (England, Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Brazil, Argentina) probably produce greater quantities of awesome scouted players, but you can get great players from any country. My best results have been from Spain, but that’s only because by the time I sent a scout there I’d discovered the reload trick, so I just kept reloading til I got good results. I’ve had amazing scouted players from Scotland, China and Russia though – in fact I got just as many good players from those three countries as from Brazil or Germany.
So basically, the scout is more important. If you have the patience to reload until you’re satisfied then you can get amazing players from any country.
It mostly depends on your scout. I have 3, 5 star scouts, and i send them to the US, Germany, and England and have amazing players found. My best were Jon Kay(ENG) a 16 yr old striker with 73, Jannis Ulreich(GER) a 16 CB with 69 and David Shea(USA) a 16 RM with 70. Be paitient and you’ll get amazing results
Does anyone know if you can scout Wales
You can’t. You can scout England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but not Wales. Probably has something to do with the fact there’s no Welsh national team in FIFA 12 either.
What is the highest potential any player can have?
The highest potential range is 85-91, although it’s conceivable a player could grow to perhaps 92 if they play enough and do good enough performances.
Why dont FIFA have wales as an international team? They have had great players over the years like bellamy, giggs, speed, rush, hughes and earnshaw. They also have great young players including bale, ramsey, ledley, gunter, matthews, allen, collinson, vokes and robson-kanu.
No idea, maybe they had licensing issues. Back in FIFA 08 Nigeria were my favourite international team, then the next year they weren’t in the game (and still aren’t). Wales are a good team, and when you consider that minnows like New Zealand or Egypt are in the game and Wales aren’t I think it shows it’s probably a licensing issue. FIFA 12 will have a lot of Welsh buyers so EA wouldn’t deliberately decide not to include the team.
What country do you think i should scout to find a top centre back partner for frederik sorensen?
Also what country do you think i should scout for two top wingers that could work well with paco alcacer?
For both questions – any country. No country ‘specialises’ in positions such as CBs or wingers. The ‘big 9’ (England, France, Italy, Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Germany) are probably more likely to produce good scouted players, but it’s not like there’s a cap on how good a scouted player from (for example) Slovenia can be, or a minimum OVR for Brazilian scouted players. So if you don’t want to spend much time reloading to get good results, try scouting in those ‘big 9’ countries, otherwise just scout wherever you like.
well, as waterish said you can find really good players pretty much everywhere, but those big 9 will probably give you better results (for example i tried in poland and russia but i didn’t find as many future stars as in germany, which for me is the best, just before spain) and finally, my personal recommendation, i can’t prove this yet but i found out that ratings (like strength, passing, shooting, crossing etc.) can vary depending on where you send them so you’ll be more likely to find more physical players in africa than technical, (although, who knows you may find that the next xavi hernandez is african) in the same way that i discovered that if you don’t look for a specific position some countries are more likely to produce good attacking players than others, i.e. germany gave me a couple of great midfielders and attackers, and nigeria gave some sick defenders so if you are looking for a good CB id search in africa, hope it helped 😉
Well unfortunately that’s not quite true. Just as no country specialises in producing defenders, attackers, etc, no country specialises in any type of player (i.e. strong, technical, etc). You could send a scout to Italy or Paraguay to look for ‘physically strong’ players and get players who are just as strong as those from Africa, simply because the scout is looking for strong players. Look for a certain type of player, and you will find that type of player – it’s confirmation bias, and doesn’t actually mean that that nation produces better players of that type. Similarly, go to Africa looking for technically gifted players and you’ll find loads.
The fundamental thing about FIFA 12’s scouting mode (that makes it different from previous versions) is that it’s entirely random (other than the big 9 being slightly more likely to produce good players). Think about it – in FIFA 12 you’ve got Ahmed Musa (weak but tricky winger) from Nigeria, alongside Alexandr Orekhov (a hugely strong but technically lacking defender) from Russia. Saying African players are likely to be stronger but less skilled is just a stereotype, and doesn’t play out in FIFA 12 (or real life).
Finally, I don’t think countries will produce more of a certain position than others. You got loads of attackers and mids in Germany and defenders from Nigeria, fair enough. However, you’ll notice that if you reload your scouting reports (if you’re looking for ‘anything’) you’ll get a new random batch of positions. So scout for 6 months in Germany and you could find loads of good mids, but reload it all and do it again and (because it’s random) you could find loads of defenders (or, if you’re like me, loads of damn goalkeepers 😛 ).
Sorry to burst your bubble a bit, but I just thought I should clear some things up 🙂
Fucking thanks for you tutorial. I didn’t know how to scout good players and how it worked. Thanx man! From the Netherlands.
No problem, Osama. How did you escape the Navy Seals’ attack?
Thank you for this immense post… Just one question: I signed a scouted player to the youth academy and he has an overall of 57-79. I used your trick to find his actual OVR, and it was 63. Now I wonder, if I keep him in the academy, his “basic” potential will always be 63 no matter what the monthly reports will say about him? because if I save-reload before the reports on the youth academy, the players overall can be worse or better
I think that’s mentioned in this article or maybe one of the other ones. If you leave him in the youth academy his overall will improve from the overall of 63 he had when you signed him. The scouts view on the player never changes the actual players attributes, it’s just the scout trying to work out how good the player is. So no need to worry about his overall ever being lower then 63 it can only get better. Hope that answers your question?
Yep, that’s correct.
His OVR won’t change if you reload, the only thing that is changing is the scout’s estimate of his OVR and potential. For example, one month the scout could say his potential is 81-87 and the next he’ll say it’s 76-82. If the player’s actual potential is 82 then both of these estimates are still correct.
Also, a 63 rated player is really good, hold on to him. How old is he?
Thanks to both of you for your answers! ^_^ You helped me a lot.
Anyway, he’s 64 now (I’m sure, his overall is 64-68 now), is 15 years old and has a potential of 84-90.
Just out of curiosity… did you ever find someone rated higher than 69/70?.
PS: Sorry for my bad english
The best player(s) I’ve ever found were aged 14 and rated 66. There were 2 of them I think. By the time I promoted them at age 16 or 17 they were rated around 74 or 75 I think. But that was before the November patch, and you don’t seem to find so many insane players any more (or maybe I just haven’t tested it enough yet).
Anyway, glad I could help. That player you’ve got is going to be incredible, there’s a very good chance that he’ll be around 69 or maybe even 70 by age 16. I would wait until he’s 17 to promote him though, just to give him more time to develop. If you leave a player in the youth academy he seems to develop as fast as he would if he was play8ing every game in the first team – clearly you may not be able to guarantee him that much game time, so it’s best to leave him in the academy as long as possible. If you get a message saying he wants to leave the academy, just reload and try again until the message stops appearing (so make sure you save regularly!).
Hi, thanks for the really comprehensive article. Was curious to know can scouted players have a “trait” like long shot taker, finesse shot? All the players so far I’ve found haven’t. Thanks 🙂
They can’t get traits for some reason but they can get specialities (i.e. the little “badges” like speedster or acrobat). For example, I had 2 strikers that each had the clinical finisher speciality at age 16 😀
Big thx! After reading your blog, i have a much better idea of how this youth system works, but i still have some questions:
1)i have a player in my youth squad with current OVR between 64-66, age 17. His potential is said to be between 84-90. he has been in my academy since 14 i believe(latest 15). Now since i’m playing as manchester united, it’s hard for me to promote any youth to 1st team, especially when i also buy real youths to play and develop. i’m in my 3rd season after the jan transfer window and am wondering if i should promote this kid.
2) I kno that u’ve mentioned that youth does grow in the academy, but do they grow more rapidly in the physical compared to you promoting him to 1st team? I’m asking this under the condition that i am playing patch 1.03
3) my cleverley just reached 82 at end of 2013, middle of 3rd season, playing as frequent as i can, and he started from 76 in the 1st season. I wonder how this compares to the growth pre-1.03 patch, since started the save before the patch but, continued playing after the patching. Wonder if you, or anyone could give me some insight on that before i decide to revert back to 1.00.
No problem. In answer to your questions:
1) Hmm. Well I think being Manchester United could be good or bad. It could be bad because your team is so good that he may not be able to break in to it. However, it could also be good because if you play him then you can surround him with really good players to make up for it. I would say promote him and try to play him as much as possible – like every game if you can. The calibre of your other players will make up for him and should mean that playing him will make little difference to your team’s results (although playing him may have more of a negative effect if you sim games, but even then it’ll probably be negligible). If you’re also buying real youth players and developing them, then I’d recommend reining in your scouting (or vice versa), since you probably won’t be able to give all your players enough time to develop now that you’ve installed the patch.
2) Overall I think that youth players may or may not grow faster in the youth academy than in the first team depending on your squad. Youth players in the academy grow as fast as they would if they were playing every game in the first team – if you have a good team then you may not be able to guarantee this, hence they may grow more slowly in your first team than in the academy. If you have a team where the youth player is good enough to slot straight in, however, then there will probably be little difference. Since most people seem to choose strong teams for their career mode, I’d recommend keeping youth players in the academy as long as possible so as to maximise growth. As for physical stats specifically, I don’t know. I know the patch slowed down physical growth (and thus OVR growth), but I don’t know how the youth academy affects it.
3) Due to the above, his growth will be slower than before the patch. Players now seem to grow 2-3 points per season, when before the patch the best ones could grow 3, 4, even 5 points per season. This is why it’s important to give your youth player(s) as much playing time as possible, otherwise they simply won’t reach their potential. But if you know how to uninstall the patch then I’d really love to know!!
BIG thx again for the quick reply!! I honestly don’t know how to revert to the old patch, as i haven’t try, i couldn’t say i do. But looking up fifa 12 forums, people seem to say you could clear out your hdd(im on ps3 btw) and play the game basically with a fresh console. That, i think also means your other saves will be gone, which means you need a back up.
as for the tips on the youth, thx lots !!, i’ll do exactly what you’ve said and cut back on the scouting.
I’ll come back and tell you about this youth’s progress after another 2/3 seasons of playing.
cheers!
I can’t find anything on the FIFA forums, which is a shame. Lots of tips on how to fix the problems the patch creates (delete the UGC file), but nothing on how to uninstall the patch itself
Any news on your progress? I’d be very interested to hear!
I’m on PS3: I could unistall the patch just by deleting game data, I did it some weeks ago, but then I returned to 1.03 to play online.
To be honest it’s not that good, I mean, growth is faster (especially physical growth), maybe that’s good for a game, but due to this with the old patch it’s more likely to encounter squads with a lot of really really fast players, that kinda pisses me off and it’s not much realistic… Maybe I am the only one thinking this way…
Anyway if you don’t play online you can do this without any problem.
The problem for me is that seeing as growth is much slower you now can’t have as many scouted players – in order for them to grow properly they need to play nearly every game (if not every game), and you simply can’t afford that if you have more than a few scouted players
I know the physical growth is a little unrealistic, but I’m willing to put up with that if it means my scouted (and normal) players actually grow a decent amount.
hello friends of fifa 12 but when appears the positions of CAM and CF ? I already play with the paris sg 6 years and doesnt appear , and the positions i like it is the CAM and a few a CF the positions appear in the youngs or I have to use the normal players ?
The only positions that scouted players can have are: GK, RB, LB, CB, CM, RM, LM, RW, LW, ST. No SW, LWB, RWB, CDM, CAM or CF. However, look at the players’ stats – if you have a CM who has really good dribbling and long shots (for example) then he will do well at CAM; if he has good interceptions and tackling then he will be good at CDM. These positions do exist, but they aren’t very obvious.
Is there any way to add player’s position (e.g. an CM become/can be a CDM or CAM)?
And are all of the scouted players have tucked shirt and short sleeve shirt? Is there any way to change their style?
In short, no. Unfortunately you can’t customise their appearance and yes, they all have short sleeves and tucked in shirts (although all of my scouted players (in 2 different CMs) have had crazy boot colours, like bright green or blue, etc. None bar 1 have had black boots!). Also, see my reply to Adrian Aviles Banda on this page in relation to scouted player positions.
Excellent guide!
Helped me a lot.
A big thank you from me :).
No problem 🙂
Been playing for 6 years now with AFC Wimbledon. I have a lot of 82-88 talents in my team but they develop very very slowely even though they play every match. Found a 82-88 winger who now is 20 (played 4 season almost every match) and he is stil only 71?
How come`
How many points is he growing per season? Because if it’s only about 2 then he’ll still reach his (minimum) potential within 6 years, which, when you consider you’ll have an 83 rated 26 year old, is not actually that bad. Before the patch he may have reached 83 OVR by the time he was 22, now we just have to be a little more patient.
Just thought I’d throw a reply on here…was having trouble signing a player, he wouldn’t even accept 60K+/week wages, but read to release him and sign him as a free agent, which worked.
But somehow made it to this outline which really helped me determine which guys to go for.
Just promoted a 16 yr old Brazilian CB…he’s a 71 OVR right out of the gate and potential was 84-90.
Will definitely be in my lineup for many seasons.
Thanks for the tips!
-Blake
Glad I could help! That CB is going to be a beast by the look of it. How much is he worth? I promoted a 63 OVR CB (now 65) who is now worth £4.2m, so your guy must be worth loads.
Well in the first transfer window, his value was displayed as $6.0m USD….in the second he’s up to $9.0m
Not sure how that relates to £
$9m is about £5.5m I think, so that’s awesome. Have a look at this article and you could find another CB to go alongside him.
If the team you are playing with has a great acdemy in the real world ex. Barca (La Masia) would i then have an effect on the players OVR andr potential?
Nope, it doesn’t affect it. If a team in real life has an awesome academy (e.g. Barce, Liverpool) then they probably already have lots of high-potential real players in the squad, but it doesn’t affect the quality of scouted players. The only 2 things that do are the scout and (to a lesser degree) where he looks.
THX for the quick reply. it would be cool if did but thanks again
PS. sorry for the bad english i come from Denmark
No problem. It would be cool, but it would also be a bit boring – no one would be smaller teams because they’d know they will never find great players. In real life plenty of small teams have great academies, such as Maribor in Slovenia.
And your English is fine 🙂
Great post and comments. I thought I would relay some of my experience with youth players so far in case it helps anyone. Three main things I wanted to talk about:
1) I thought that every youth player had a work rate of Medium/Medium. Everyone I was scouting and signing had that. But I FINALLY found one player (a striker from Morocco) who had a High/Medium work rate. So if anyone is wondering, it is possible to get something other than Medium/Medium.
2) Stupid skill moves! So many of the players I sign only have 1 or 2 star skill moves. It makes me feel like not developing them even if they have high potentials. The highest I’ve found so far is a player with 4 star skill moves (with 4 star weak foot). Another guy I found has 3 star skill moves (with 5 star weak foot and 85-91 potential). I don’t actually use skill moves all that often, but I still think it’s lame that so many players are so low.
3) Keep your youth players on your youth squad as long as possible, and only sign them when they “want out”. I read this tip somewhere and I was wondering if the youth player stats actually went up if they were sitting on the youth squad. I followed one player’s stats closely from age 14-17 and I can confirm that the stats WILL GO UP. Even when a range of numbers becomes a single number, that single number will still continue to increase. The starting overall rating will also keep going up. The player I followed was a CB and I kept releasing him from my youth squad (and then reloading) to check what his starting overall was. It went from the mid-60s all the way up to 71 before I signed him off the youth squad. His tackle went up so much that he had 86 standing and sliding tackle (and the Tackling specialty) to begin with.
Hope this helps. Oh, I did have one question… Obviously youth players can develop Specialities as their stats increase, but do any youth players have Traits?
Oops nevermind, I see someone already asked about Traits in the comments. Bummer youth players don’t have them…
Thanks for the response 🙂
1) This is true, but as you say, rare.
2) Since installing the patch I’ve actually had much more in the way of high skill moves/weak foot ability in my scouted players than before. This especially seems to be the case with wide players – in typical FIFA fashion, RMs always seem to be left-footed, and vice versa. However, when this is the case I seem to be finding that their weak foot is always at least 3 stars, usually 4 stars (sometimes 5), and that their skill moves rating is relatively high as well. I don’t know whether this is just luck on my part – it seems to sensible to have been a deliberate move by EA.
3) Yep, youth player OVRs do go up in the youth squad. I check mine every month when the report comes out to see how they’re doing. It seems that their growth rate when you leave them in the academy is equivalent to them playing every game in the first team – obviously you may not be able to guarantee this, so keeping them in the youth team as long as possible is advisable (I usually promote mine at around age 17). If you get a message through saying the youth player wants out, just reload and try again – it’s random, so the message may not pop up again next time round (unless of course you want to promote him!).
And yes, youth players never have traits
1) Have you ever encountered a youth player with a Low work rate? Just curious.
2) Haha that is crazy, almost every outside mid I’ve signed has a 1-star skill move rating.
I guess it really doesn’t matter to me since I don’t use skill moves that much, but it does give me a reason to discriminate between the youth players. With three 5-star scouts, my youth squad is too full haha.
1) I’m not sure, I never really look at it to be honest. I always though the work rate was determined by the position (in customise formations)… maybe I was wrong.
2) It’s strange, but I’ve only noticed it since the patch. Dunno if it actually is due to the patch or just luck though. My first couple of CMs ended up like that, I just quit them cos I had about 10 youth players ready to be promoted and my first team was also full of high-potential players who needed developing. It’s so tempting just to go out on “one more” scouting excursion, and then again and again and again…
I signed a decent 15 year-old GK with an OVR of 60 and a potential of 82-88.
When he was 16, he showed as eligible, which is great. Nonetheless, I didn’t need a keeper just at that moment so I wanted him to stay in the academy. Two weeks later, I look and he’s gone! Not in my Youth Academy and not on the actual squad. I received no notifications, he just disappeared.
Two questions:
1. Did this happen because I didn’t promote him to the squad and another team snatched him?
2. Can these Youth players still progress and develop while in the academy once they’ve reached 16?
Unfortunately I think that was just a glitch
Do you have a save from before he disappeared? You could try reloading that and hopefully he won’t disappear this time round.
In answer to your questions:
1) I didn’t happen because of that. I’ve had players in the youth academy who were 18 (I don’t know the max age for them though). Also, once a player is signed to your academy he can’t be taken by any other team – he’s signed a contract with you, after all.
2) Of course, youth players always keep growing in the academy. It seems that their growth rate in the academy is equivalent to playing every week in the first team, and this is true whether they’re older than 16 or younger.
Hope this helps.
That helps very much, but I didn’t have a backup save. Fortunately, I had a whiny overpriced keeper as my #1 whom I’ve released from contract. He was a 71 rated 28 year-old and he wanted too much money.
My current backup is a 67 rated 26 year-old, which means my 16 year-old is not nearly as good but if I leave him as the #2 keeper, he’ll never progress. I guess I need to loan him out? On top of that, I have another highly touted keeper in my Youth Academy who’s 15 (currently a 57).
Glad to know it was a glitch because I thought it was really lame that he just flat-out disappeared all the sudden. I could sell the 16 year-old, too. He’s worth 1.7 million pound.
Just a couple of questions:
1) What is your #1 GK (the 67 OVR one)’s potential?
2) Play your 16 year old. Within a couple of seasons he should have caught up with the other GK if you play him as much as possible.
3) What’s the potential of your 15 year old GK?
1. Ah, bless, I didn’t realize you could see the potential of a non-Youth player! Where is that located?
2. Makes sense. I’ll do that.
3. Ah, I was wrong. He’s 16, so I have two 16 year-olds. The one I haven’t promoted is 68-91 and when I promote him, his OVR is 57. (Again, not sure where to see potential.)
P.S. – Can you send me an e-mail? I assume you can as admin. I was going to e-mail you directly but it’s not listed anywhere on the site. 😛
1) Whoops, sorry that’s my fault. You can only check a player’s potential if he’s on one of the FIFA Fanatic tables. If you GK isn’t, then you can’t see his potential, as there’s no way to do this in-game unfortunately.
2) Plus it’s much more fun to see a player develop than to just have a decent one who doesn’t grow at all.
3) Keep him in your academy, his potential will narrow down. Also, did you take a note of the potential of your promoted GK? If so, compare it to the other 16 year old GK (once it’s narrowed down a bit more) and see which is better – whichever is is likely to grow faster. (The player’s OVR is also important – if you have one rated 65 OVR with potential 82-88 and one rated 57 OVR with 83-89 potential, the 65 OVR one is the better choice.)
Hope this helps.
Thanks for your advice, this is the best post around no doub about it.
I got 2 good players thanks to your advice.
Sadly both of them are Goalkeeper but i can wait 1 more month and do the same trick to get midfielders and attackers.
From Spain (5 stars scout is from spain and is seeking players in spain)
I got 1 goalkeeper with and average of 54-74 and potential of 74-91
( 4-5 stars scout is from holland and seeking players in holland)
From Holland
And the other goalkeeper is 52-72 with potential 70-91
So far no luck an my 3 scout in china.
( 3 stars Scout is from austria and seeking players in china)
And the best part is that BOTH are 14 years old.
But I’m doing 3 scouts at the same time and they are searching for any position players And that is not the best thing to do.
After this season i will use the scout to look 1 specific kind of player so i can get 3 possibilities to avoid the same casuality of getting 2 or 3 best same position players.
I will use 1 scout for defense 1 for midfielders and 1 for attackers.
Hope my experience help you guys!
By the way, it took me like 40 minutes to get this 2 players at the same time.
But loading and reloaing is a good way to find the best of the best.
Thanks again.
Thanks!
Those goalkeepers look awesome, have you found out their OVR yet? And it’s amazing when you find very talented players who are 14, it’s like the Holy Grail of scouting 😛
That’s a very good idea to break up your scouts like that. Just a word of warning – you often get goalkeepers in your scout reports when you’re looking for defenders, so you may end up with another awesome GK!
Also, it’s strange that when you sent out your scouts their return dates were all messed up. What I usually do is wait a week or so between sending my scouts out, that way (as you said) if I get a good player I can save and move on to the next scout. I think if you spread out your scouts a bit that problem shouldn’t happen again.
As for having 3 scouts or 2, I think it depends on how much money you are willing to spend on scouts, and how much you need scouted players! You could spend all your money on 1 5/5 scout, or spread it among 3 not-as-good scouts. If you have 3 scouts you can send them to different parts of the world looking for different positions, but you’ll probably have to reload more in order to find good players. In short, having 2 or 3 scouts gives you more flexibility, but having just 1 means you can use your cash to buy a better scout.
I hope all this is helpful.
Thanks for your fast Reply, I was away for a couple of days. Sorry for my delay.
Ok, my 2 goalkeepers are OVR 74-91 and 72-91 right now.
I think I’m going to call back 2 of my 3 scouts and send them back in a week in between as you adviced me, i think it will be a better option since i can grt at least 1 great potential player from each scout each month.
Thanks a lot.
However I’m just signing 14 years old kids with an 52 and up OVR so i can have the best of the best.
I never have found a 60 or more than 60 OVR in a 14 years old, Have you? Or in any other age?
What do you think on this idea?
Getting some 14 years old with a 47-68 or any lates 40s and lates 60s OVR in their potential of 70-90 so i can resell them and get some sort of income for my club?
That way i get the best options for me and the lesser best option to sell in a future?
Let me know.
Thanks again
I guess the problem with having more than one promising GK is that it’s difficult to develop both at the same time. You could try rotating them I guess.
Also, don’t do what I did and get greedy when it comes to scouting players, otherwise you’ll end up with an academy full of players that you’ll never be able to fully develop.
Since installing the patch I’ve only found a couple, but I used to find loads before the patch. Shame they kind of nerfed it a bit.
Well I wouldn’t sell anyone who has OVR of about 64, 65ish by age 16 or 17, as even if they don’t develop into world-beaters they will still turn out pretty good if you give them enough playing time. I’d only sell players that you don’t really have enough room for (make sure you sell them to clubs that will actually play them (i.e. press ‘Stall’ when you get an offer and then check them out) because it’s always satisfying to see the player actually develop). Hold on to your decent players because as they improve their price will as well; if then you decide to sell them you’ll get a better price for them. Also, I don’t think you can sell any player who you’ve just promoted to the first team – you have to wait until the start of the next season, so you won’t be able to instantly sell them off.
Cheers
Oh, I forgot to ask you this.
Can you have 2 or 3 different scouts coming with the reports in 3 different days of the month?
That way I could save my best player from the first scout and wait for the second scout to come and choose my best option and so on.
I tried it once and this is what happened.
I choosed the 3 scouts on June 1 and they came on the 3rd.
Then i sent 1 of the 3 scout on the same day he came and it said he was going to come back on July 4th
Then I went to the 4th and sent the second scout but when i saw when he was coming back from the report it said August 4th instead of July 5th?
And the same happend with my 3rd scout that i sent on the 5th of June. It said he was coming back on September 4th??? That’s crazy.
Instead of waitting 30 days i was gonna wait 60 days for the second scout and 90 days for the third scout.
I just restart my career all over but at least I got 2 grear 14 years old GoalKeepers. ( the ones the I talked about on my early post.
Do you thing this was a glitch or is the way it is?
Do yiu thing is worth it to have 3 scouts at the same time or you rather to have 1 or 2 scouts instead?
You kind of confused me here but basically, if you have the money, you should send out all 3 scouts. I don’t see any reason to only have 1 or 2. I like to send out scouts a few days before the 1st day of the next month (when the youth squad report is generated) because it helps narrow down their stats quickly.
That’s a great tip about sending your scouts out at the end of the month, I’d never really thought about it.
Hey, thanks for the help yet again.
Have you seen this website? http://sofifa.com/en/player/search
It seems pretty legit and has the potential for all players…and it seems very accurate, too.
I just chucked it and started a new career as I had made wayyyyyy too many mistakes. I signed several guys with OVR in the 35-40 range! We’re talking 16 year-olds. FML.
I also made some terrible transfer decisions, buying crap and selling my gems. I didn’t realize how much of a role potential played. I’m running Cardiff City and they have two great young players with high potential and I sold them both. Oops. Learning here!
I knew about the So FIFA site, but I had no idea it had a player search feature. It looks really good, the only problem is that it doesn’t say what a player’s actual potential is – you can search for players over, say, potential 85, but you can’t see what the players’ actual potential is. It also includes players from the Classic XI, which is a little confusing 😛
Hey don’t worry, everyone makes mistakes when we start out. Which gems did you get rid of? And who have you decided to go with this time?
If you click on a player and scroll to the bottom, their potential is listed in the Other section. But it also has two things I’ve never heard of… “Perf Consistency” (which I’m assuming is performance consistency) and “International Rep”. Hidden attributes maybe?
I thought you were talking about FIFA itself at first and I thought “WHY HAVE I NOT HEARD OF THIS?!?!” lol.
“Perf Consistency” I’m also assuming is performance consistency, i.e. how long they can keep up a good run of form. Although that seems to depend on the result rather than anything (i.e. if your team wins, an in-form player’s form goes up, if you lose it goes down; rather than a player in form who has good performance consistency still playing well despite the loss).
International rep(utation) I’m guessing is how much big clubs are likely to buy them. I don’t see the point though – if a player is good and you put them up for sale, good clubs usually bid for them regardless of reputation. Plus, Neymar would have insane reputation, yet because he plays in Brazil FIFA assumes that no one is interested in him. Fail.
That website isnt 100% correct… It says Fieldings potential is 78 but on my CM hes already up to OVR 82 and hes only 26??
Yes it is, read the note at the top of the page:
“Many of you have players whose overall has exceeded their potential. This is because a player should naturally reach his potential, but by playing them often you can boost their overall potential. In the past this boost has been anywhere from 1 to 10, but more likely 3 or 4. This is an overly simplistic view of things but it tends to hold true in most cases.”
on my barnet manager mode then i signed solano on a 2 year contract in january on the first season but now im in season 2 i cant seem to find him. do you think he decided to retire and told hartlepool but not me or not?
I’m playing pre-patch and my youth players grow max 3 points per season
Anyway to improve this?
3 points per season is really good. Let’s say you promoted a player rated 66 aged 16. With 3 points of growth per season he’d be rated 90 by age 24! That’s incredible, so there’s nothing to worry about.
If you want to improve a player’s growth, just play him as much as you can basically.
The entire notion of development/growth seems to be some magical and unknown formula that’s very aggravating because it ends up adversely affecting my starting 11 choices.
I’ve read many places that development is related to not just minutes on the pitch but form, too. So you can play a guy three matches straight but if his form is < 6.0, he won't develop much? Anyway, it's a bummer because I'm reluctant to keep promoted Youth Academy players on my squad because they might not get much playing time so I feel compelled to loan them out, sell them, or keep them in the academy until they force my hand. It's unrealistic and frustrating. A footballer should still develop even if he's not in the starting 11!
Yeah it’s kind of a mystery what makes players go up. Even players who sit on my reserve bench and never play a game go up. Growth seems to be random too. If you save right before a game where you know a player will go up, you can keep re-simming the game and different stats will go up each time. I like to re-sim those games to get the best growth.
I’ve noticed that, but I only do it for my youth squad (and then only occasionally). Thanks to a few reloads, one GK in my youth academy has grown 4 points in less than a year! And that’s post-patch, I can’t really believe it 😛
I’ve also noticed that you’ll see more growth at certain times during the season. I see the most growth in the first month of the season after all the friendlies. I also see a lot of growth in December.
I have a feeling that all players have a hidden growth chart/graph. If anyone recalls Fifa 10 or 11 (I forget which one it was), you could see the growth chart for each player’s entire career. Some players peaked early, some late, some had very balanced growth. If this is still the case but we can’t see it, then some players will have slow growth even if you are doing great with them.
I often see plenty of growth up until December, then not much after. Although that may just be my circumstances. I don’t know about the growth chart; maybe, but I’ve not seen it discussed anywhere so I don’t really know either way.
I honestly pay no attention to form, except when a player says he’s doing well and wants to start – I start him then because I think it gives him a morale boost.
And don’t worry, players do grow even if they sit on the bench.
Play your youth players as much as you can, and loan them/sell them if you can’t play them much. A little growth is better than no growth. If you really think there’s no room for a certain youth player in your lineup, you could always sell him (but make sure it’s to a team that plays him) – it’s always nice to see them develop. If he turns out well you could always buy him back anyway.
Hi.
I have a question, mostly looking for your opinion.
I normally promote my younglings at 16 or 17, with OVR from 59 to 65 (my best) and play them every game as substitutes (make them enter the game in the 65-70 minute, but in ALL GAMES). I intend to develop 3 at the time (because there are three changes per game).
I just start this kind of developing strategy. Do you think they will develop well that way? Or is necessary they play from the beggining and stay most of the time in the field?
I also have one story with one LW from Mexico (Sergio Vega) with potential of 82-88. I sign him at 16 with 58 OVR, in december. Play him as substitute of Messi in Barcelona. In June, he was 62 OVR and still 16, when Messi start to behave like a bitch and make me sell him. Then I decided not to buy another player but to play with Vega. Now at the begining of the third season he is 17 and 70 OVR! just amazing, scored 73 goals in the season and I miss Messi no more… As you can see, he is a LW but with ST stats (83 finishing now and 80 volleys).
Thank you for your blog.
Jesus
Your method should work well. Obviously giving your youth players as much time as possible will probably make them grow quickest, but there are a lot of factors to consider. As with Sergio Vega, often players have a lot of growing to do. A player who needs to grow 20+ points to get to his potential will grow faster than someone who only has to grow 10 points, so you may often find that your players will grow even when they’re sitting on the bench, simply because the game is doing it’s best to make sure they grow. Other things definitely matter though, such as the amount of game time they get and their match ratings. But I think if you continue with your chosen method then you should get very good results (and clearly it’s working with Vega!).
Also as a final note, I think it’s always important to consider a player’s stats when deciding when to play him. As you point out, Vega is listed as a LW but is better as a striker (quite often players get mispositioned). If you put a player in his best position (i.e. the position as indicated by his stats) then he will probably grow quicker than if he is mispositioned.
Hope this is useful.
Okay it was Fifa 10. For anyone who is curious, see http://fifa.moddingway.com/news/81.html . I wonder if there is still a pre-determined chart like that for each player.
I had this scouted player from peru which his ovr was 70-73 and his potential was 72-91 and he was 16 years of age. should i scout him more or sign him?
Sounds great to me, you could always try the method I laid out in this guide and keep scouting him, save, sign him, release him, then check the free agents to see his actual OVR. But it sounds like he’ll be very tasty.
Are you playing with the November patch installed?
whatis a november patch
In November EA released an update (or patch) to the game that fixed some minor issues, but also slowed player growth right down. Unfortunately it now means that it’s difficult to make sure youth players reach their potential, as they’ll do so when they’re around 28 (rather than when they’re around 24). Thus if they didn’t grow well in the first few years then they probably won’t reach their potential. I’d recommend you don’t download it, or uninstall it if you already have downloaded it (although you can only uninstall it if you’re using a PC or PS3).
Hey, Im from India. I started manager mode with Charlton Athletic and its been three seasons and Im now playing Champion’s (League) Cup!! So, obviously, you understand my Budget constraints – The board gives me about 20 million every season, so I try to buy one world class player. My latest buy was Chris Samba from Blackburn. I desperately need to scout players because it is the cheapest way to develop my team. I scouted a “maxi Mendez” whose overall was 64 with a potential of 81-85.
My question is – is the growth of a player affected in any way, if we play him in a position that is not his? for eg., I had a player called Jonny Russel – Awesome striker. I found that he scored more goals for me when I played him at RW. similarly, I had a LB – Cedric Evina, really pacey wing back. But I had two LB’s so I played Evina at RB. His overall was 64 and he was 18 when the game began. He showed great promise, but three seasons later, his overall is 70, Is his growth being affected by me playing him RB instead of LB??
I don’t think putting players in alternate positions affects growth, mainly because the game very often mis-assigns players’ positions – very often you scout strikers whose stats suggest they are actually meant to be wingers. You can only find CMs (not CDMs or CAMs), so if you found a CM who had good dribbling and shooting stats and you played him at CAM, would that be playing him out of position because he is officially a CM? Or would you in fact be playing him in his correct position based on his stats? Because FIFA 12 often gives scouted players the wrong position, playing them elsewhere on the pitch shouldn’t affect growth.
An interesting question is whether, for example, playing a full back at centre back will mean his stats will develop along the lines of a CB or a full back. In other words, if you played a full back at centre back, over time would he start to become better at centre back, or would his stat development keep full back his best position? Unfortunately I don’t know the answer to this.
Also, Evina’s potential is 71, so it’s not his position that is causing his growth to be relatively slow. (I found out his potential here.) However, seeing as he’s 21 and almost at his potential, it’s very possible that he will actually grow more than that, maybe to 73, maybe even higher than that. He’s still very young so I imagine he can grow much more than just to 71 (the potentials given on that website are just a guideline, not strict rules anyway).
Finally, did you download the November patch? Because that really slowed down player growth. As a result, 2 points of growth per season isn’t bad; 3 points is really good. Just bear that in mind, because a player you think is growing slowly may actually be growing well.
Hope this helps.
If I’m to understand what constitutes a “good” or “bad” season for youth development, then the situation is rather grim when it comes to developing a world-beater.
Most *excellent* 16 or 17 year-olds are going to be 64-66 when you promote them. If they have a potential of 88-91, you would HAVE to get 2-3 points of development per season in order to hit their max by 28.
This brings up another question I’ve been wondering about. I am only in the 2nd year of my CM and I have a nice stable of youth players thanks to this guide. However, what will the game look like when I’m in my 10th season? Will these other clubs have the same pedigree of Youth players to replace all the Rooneys and Ronaldos of the world who will be retired?
I feel like this guide is great but it might create imbalance in the long run. I read on neoseeker where a guy was saying that late in his CM, the other teams he played against had terrible players, ostensibly because their youth players were bad.
2-3 points of development is standard I think. I rotate my squads heavily (too many good young players) and most, if not all, get at least 2 points of growth a season. The only problem is that it now takes 8 or 9 seasons instead of the 4 or 5 it used to take for them to reach their potential.
In short, no. EA really messed the AI up this year in that AI clubs just don’t rotate their players and don’t recognise potential. Thus if a promising young player isn’t good enough to make the bench or the starting 11 (but will be in a year or two with game time), then they almost never get played. A 72 rated 32 year old will play every game, whilst a 71 rated 17 year old (potential 85) rots in the reserves. By the time the 32 year old retires (often when they’re around 38 or something stupid), the 17 year old has missed out on years of growth and will never reach their potential. The result is that all (or most) opposition squads end up mediocre. By that point I suppose the point of the game is to develop your youth players as much as possible and ignore the glaring realism issues.
Finally, don’t worry about imbalance. The choice is essentially have an average squad and play mediocre teams, or have a great squads and still play mediocre teams. With a choice like that, I’d recommend creating an imbalance 😉
Sorry to be so negative, but it’s the sad reality. I usually get bored after a few seasons anyway so don’t get to this stage, but I’ve read a lot of accounts of disappointing seasons.
So I just promoted a LB OVR 63, not the best but my youth is really young. My defense is really weak and I need him to develop fast, how can I improve his OVR quickly? I played his first game (6-0 rout of Arsenal) and he scored four. Will that make him any better?
Also, I’ve got lots of good players in my youth academy, the best is a Argentine ST OVR 58-66. He has a low POT though, 78-84. Is this really accurate? He has been in the academy 1 yr. and his OVR has gone up about 3 or 4. P.S. he is 15
I generally find that simming games gives your players better match ratings than if you play games (unless you win every game convincingly, as you did against Arsenal), but having him score 4 will definitely be good – better player ratings in general equal better growth. I’ve got an article on ensuring your youth players grow well here, so you could have a look at that to see if it helps.
Don’t worry about that striker’s potential, it could be that it’s 84, which is world class. If you play him lots he could exceed his potential as well. Anyway, if he’s been going up by 3 or 4 points then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, just play him as much as you can and ensure he gets a few goals, he’ll do well.
what is the highest a youth players ovr can be
Do you mean when you first scout them? I don’t think there is a limit, although 66 is the highest I’ve ever found (both pre-patch and post-patch).
Highest potential range is 85-91. Highest starting overall I’ve seen (after letting them sit on my youth squad for 4 years) was 71.
What I meant was 66 was the highest OVR of a player when I found him. The highest of a scouted player (for me) when he was promoted was, I *think*, 76 (a Russian GK). Of course, that was pre-patch.
However, I’m hearing reports that the winter update may actually have restored player growth to around pre-patch levels. No confirmation yet, just speculation, but let’s hope so.
Hi, I read your reply ^^ up there regarding speculation that high growth has been restored with the winter update. I was just wondering where you found this info and if possible could you link it/expand a bit more on the topic. Cheers, nice site by the way!
I read it on EA’s FIFA 12 forums. Keep checking back to see if there are any further developments. At the moment no one’s really sure whether growth has been affected or not – some people say their game has been affected, others say theirs hasn’t. We’ll just have to wait and see I guess. I think if it ends up being confirmed I’ll make a post on here to let everyone know.
Thanks 🙂
Hi i have a question about the youthsystem of FIFA 12.
I have the problem that my players just grow 1 point or 2 in a season, even if they play nearly every game off the season (often not cup oder champions league games because of stamina).
With a bit luck sometimes a player increases by 3 points.
I want to know if its normal or if there is a special tactic to force the player-improvement?
Because if there ist maybe a player with a rate of 63 at age 16 and i take him to my first team, an he just increases by 1 or 2 a season than he needs 5 seasons or more to become a 70.
And another question is if there is an option to force scouting fast players because i always play and not sim and i like it to play with small fast players 🙂
But thank you for this great blog, this is the best i’ve found about this topic!
Greetings from Germany (ahhh thats the reason for my bad english :P)
I replied to your question here 🙂
I’m doing a manger mode with deportivo, liga adelante (second spanish league), so i only managed to get one proper good scouter (who is from nigeria) so i sent him to nigeria and on his first year, he found a player whose over all was max was 77! so i signed him and now he is 68 and 16, on his way to become a top class defender. The second best guy I’ve ever signed is bohl, a german left winger who was 69 when i promoted him to the first team and he now is sick at dribbling. Finally i only want to say that fifa 12 has got, by far, the best manager mode I’ve ever played and I’ve been playing fifa since 2005, i mean, i now even play more fifa than cod!!! xD and also, thanks for the guide man, its actually quite useful
That’s awesome. As I said in the guide, even average/poor scouts can find great players 🙂
And you’re right about FIFA 12 manager mode. Even though the growth has been majorly slowed down, it’s still great fun. The scouting is definitely the best feature (I’ve liked the scouting features from FIFA 08 onwards, and FIFA 12’s is definitely the best).
No problem, glad it’s helped you 🙂
have you ever heard of a youth player comming
outin the seventies?
I had a Brazilian CB come out at 71
Awesome, how is he doing now?
Pre-patch, yes, I used to get loads because they all grew so much in the academy. After installing the patch, I haven’t had any yet. However, at the moment I have a 15 (almost 16) year old GK in my academy rated 68. I found him OVR 61 aged 14, and he’s now growing so fast that I’m hoping that by the time I release him aged 17 he’ll be at least 72.
why don’t other clubs take young players in my team on loan?
is it somewhat related to the board difficulty i’ve chosen?
I think usually it’s because you’ve only just promoted them. If you promoted a youth player either earlier in the same season, or during the summer break, then clubs usually won’t take them on loan. I think you have to wait at least 1 calendar year until they can be taken on. Annoying, I know, but FIFA 12 seems to equate a promoted player to one you’ve just bought. In real life a team wouldn’t instantly loan out a player they’d just bought (unless he was really young). Of course, in real life many clubs loan out young players as soon as they’re promoted to the full squad, but FIFA 12 doesn’t see it that way.
Try having a look at this article I made specifically about developing your youth players.
Chelsea loaning out Kevin de Bruyne. 😛
Exactly, this sort of thing actually happens quite often in real life. A big team will buy a promising young player but then loan him back to his original team because maybe he is too young to make the switch to another country. Loaning him back will help him develop and get ready to move.
Please I have a question, I have a player in my youth academy he’s 14 (german LM) he has an overall of 60-64 and a potential of 84-88. By the time he’s 16 does his overall grow like for instance becomese 66-70 or between age 14 and 16 the overall doesn’t grow. it’s confusing for me hope u help me
Yep, his OVR will definitely grow whilst he’s in the academy. You can use the tips in this guide (releasing him to see his OVR, then reloading) to monitor his growth. Make sure you give him plenty of playing time when he’s promoted, as it sounds like he’s going to be really good. Also, have a look at this article I wrote about developing youth players, hopefully it’ll give you some good advice 🙂
Thanks for you quick reply! really helpful one more question if he’s 60-64 (at 14) what do you expect (estimate) from your experience his overall to be at 16?
Thanks
It’s hard to tell. Do you know what his actual OVR is yet? Let’s say he’s 62 OVR aged 14. I’d say he’d be minimum 66, probably maximum 70 or 71. I’d leave him in your academy til he’s 17, however. I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems younger plays (16, 17) don’t grow that much, then once they reach 18 they grow more. It may just be me though, I don’t know if your game will be the same. Even so, leaving him in the academy until he’s 17 means he’ll probably grow more, seeing as being in the academy is equivalent to your youth players playing every game in the first team; obviously you may not be able to guarantee that at first, so you should take the chance to maximise his growth by leaving him in the academy as long as you can. If he requests a contract and you’re not ready yet, just reload. It seems to be random, so he may not ask next time around.
Hope this all makes sense and is useful.
Yeah thanks a lot again. I’ve done a lot of season as a gm before on fifa12. But this time i’ve started a new one from zero and am the coach of RC Lens a ligue 2 team playing (legendary diffuclity both board and gameplay). So youth academy must be my stronghold. And basically some prospects are better then my current squad. So i don’t have trouble finding time game for my youth.
But i will have consistently questions throughout thanks mate!
That’s the great thing about playing as lower league clubs – your scouted players have a really good chance of getting into the first team. Good luck playing on all legendary, what scout could you afford?
No problem, I’ll be around to answer your questions as best as I can 🙂
well I have 3 scouts.
One french 3 stars for both judgment and exp
One gemran 3 stars exp 2 stars jud
one portugese 2 by 2
I hope i had better scouts but restricted by my budget
Well it seems that even with your restricted budget, your scouts have managed to find some very decent players. That’s one of the things I like about FIFA 12’s scouting – even small teams can get good scouted players, you don’t have to be AC Milan to find future superstars.
Yeah exactly, it’s like real life, small club draft great prospects.
like Maicon with monaco for instance
Ive got this scout he’s really good his potential is 85-91 and starting 66-75 but when I offered him a contract he says no I offered him $150,000 per week but he’s still saying no, why?
It’s a glitch that came in after the November patch is installed. Basically, the player wants a 4 year contract, but the maximum you can offer is 3 years. What you need to do is wait until the next season begins, then his contract requests will have changed (i.e. he may now want slightly more in wages but only a 2 year contract).
However, if you get a message saying he wants out of the academy, you must reload the game until the messages stop. This is because this message means you only have a limited amount of time until he’ll automatically be released. If he gets released and the season ends, often he’ll just disappear from the free agents. Luckily if you get that message you can just reload – it appears randomly, so with enough reloading it stops appearing.
The alternative is that you can release him into the free agents and then resign him. However, you must, must, must do this in a transfer window, otherwise what I described above will happen – you won’t be able to sign him and he might disappear at the end of the season.
Hope this helps.
Thanks this worked.
Hey man thank you very much for this wonderful guide 🙂
i hope u wil be able to answer my question
i signed a 14 year old jose ramirez(GK) from spain..his ovr was 53 to 73 and potential 72 to 91..
After the first update his ovr was 59 to 65 and pot of 84 to 90
then i tried the reload process..and then his overall became 61 to 67 and pot 85 to 91..which remained till he became 17..
So my question is as i reloaded..would it change his overall and potential rather than 84 to 90..to 85 to 91
now he is 18 year old and rated 75 :D..
And 1 more question is my english good?
At first I thought the same as you – I thought that reloading could improve a player’s OVR and potential. However, what’s actually happening is that your scout’s estimate of the player is changing, but his OVR and potential remain the same. So it could be that Jose Ramirez had an OVR of 62 and potential of 86. 62 OVR is between 59-65 and also between 61-67, and 86 potential is between both 84-90 and 85-91. So the player isn’t actually improving, it’s just that your scout’s guess as to how good he is/will be is changing.
Also, 75 at 18 is incredible. Are you playing with the November patch installed.
Finally, your English is excellent.
Hey man thank you very much for this wonderful guide 🙂
i hope u wil be able to answer my question
i signed a 14 year old jose ramirez(GK) from spain..his ovr was 53 to 73 and potential 72 to 91..
After the first update his ovr was 59 to 65 and pot of 84 to 90
then i tried the reload process..and then his overall became 61 to 67 and pot 85 to 91..which remained till he became 17..
So my question is as i reloaded..would it change his overall and potential rather than 84 to 90..to 85 to 91
now he is 18 year old and rated 75 :D..
And 1 more question is my english good?:)
No mate i dont have the nov patch bcoz people said that player grow way to slowly..
I dont play any game and keep on simming..
As i play for manutd..i just starts playing the youth player after promoting..if he has atleast 70 ovr at 18..as i have very strong squad to cover a single player weakness..
After simming 2 seasons he is now 21 and rated 85 😀 and has a price tag of 45m U$..
Now i have reached in the year 2023..and played till january..
But unfortunately he has only grown by 2(+1s) from the beginning of 2023..
But i do hope that he will starts two grow after a season or a 2..and in 2026 i have expectation that he will be around 87 to 88..
Will it be possible?
Good idea, for me the November patch has worsened the game.
That player is incredible, but don’t worry about his growth. He’ll probably grow a few more points, just very slowly, as he’s approaching his peak. 85 is really, really good, so you should be really happy with him.
WHEN YOU ARE CHECKING THE YOUTH PLAYERS STATS WHY ARE SOME OF THEM GREEN?
Means tat these stats has been increased since last time..
nice 1
Bilal Waseem is right.
I just wanted to mention a player i have literally just scouted. From Mexico, I searched Tech gifted, They found me a 14 year old with overall 57-79, potienal 71-91. Positions LB, CB, RB, CM. First week i found him, signed him straight off because of his amazing age compared too overall. Whether he gets too 90 or not, i don’t really care, if his overall stays over 57 at the age of 14, i will defiantly be keeping him and stick him in my first team over R Miranda or Sorensen, just because of his potential.
He looks awesome. Have a look at his stats; since you searched for technically gifted players, he may be better on the wing that at fullback. Have you found out his OVR?
Hey man jose ramirez has reached 86 at the final season..
Then i started a new career mode..
Now unfortunately i have got two great gk..
A 16 year old with ovr of 66-70 and pot of 84-90
other 15 year old with ovr 64-68 and pot of 84-90
now which one wil be my future?
That’s really difficult to tell. Do you know what the OVR is for each of them? Promote one and play him full time in the first team. Meanwhile, compare his growth to the growth of your other keeper (still in the academy; do this by releasing him after each monthly report, checking his OVR, then reloading). Whichever grows best, keep. Or loan one out and play the other, then next season do the opposite, then sell whichever doesn’t do as well (make sure to loan them to clubs that will actually play them.
It’s always difficult when you have 2 awesome keepers. If you’re playing pre-patch then you might actually be able to develop both; if not, you may have to get rid of one, as growth won’t be as fast.
OK, So using the save/reload method I reloaded Scouting Report after Scouting Report until I got someone decent (also using the same method to sign/release youth players to find their actual OVR)…so I ended up with a 68 rated CB. I also have it setup to get scouting reports just before the first of the month so I can get an immediate Youth Squad Report for my guys.
SO I go this guy right before the January transfer window opened. Now that it’s in the transfer window, should I offer him a contract now and loan him out?…or keep him in my Youth Squad and risk him asking to leave in a month or two and not having the space to play him during my cup/league runs?
Is he 16? 68 OVR is insane, great find!
Well there are 2 things I’d say:
1) You may have trouble loaning him out straight away, for some reason FIFA doesn’t like it if you promote a player then instantly try to loan him. Give it a try though, it may work. Create a test save, promote him, try to loan him out, then if you’re successful keep that save (make sure to loan him to a club that will play him all the time).
2) If you get a message saying he wants out of the academy, just reload. It’s semi-random – often you’ll get the message, and then a few more times if you reload, but after a few more reloads the messages just stop. So don’t worry if he says he wants to be promoted, just reload and keep trying until you stop getting the messages.
Ohk..
So how can i download latest squad..
I have a cracked version..a torrent version..
Is there a way to get winter update..means download it from somewhere or else?
Plz help..
Don’t know I’m afraid, I play the xbox version. You won’t be able to download updates with cracked versions (and I’m afraid I’m not going to give out tips on how to avoid paying for the game!)
This may sound really, really dumb, but what is a patch, and how do they download? Is it automatic of do you have to do it? Also, what if all of your starter are 80+ overall, and you are in a title race, would you still play a 68 OVR 16 year old?
A patch is basically just an update for the game (not including squad updates). If it’s a game patch then it’s automatic when connect to the internet (it’ll say you have to download it or be signed off the internet). Squad updates are not automatic, you need to go to Customise FIFA -> change squads/rosters -> download updates.
I would, yes. If you don’t, how is he ever going to get better?
I have a couple of question mate
1.I couldn’t loan any young players during mid-season transfers why?
2. I have a 16 years old striker who is leading the french league in goals, does it make any difference winning the golden boot with him for his development? will he develop faster ?
thanks
1) You usually can’t loan players out right after you’ve promoted them, you have to wait until the next season starts and try then. EA claimed that the November update made it easier to loan youth players, but clearly that’s not been the case.
2) Not directly, but indirectly yes. Winning the golden boot itself doesn’t do anything, but if he’s scoring lots of goals then he must be playing well, which does help.
does anyone know how long the manager mode goes on for as usually its around 15 years but don’t know about it this time.I’m curious to know as i am in my 14th season and found 2 wingers from nigeria 16 years old overall 69 & 71 respectively, it would be a shame if the manager mode is only for 15 years.
Thanks
Yep, only 15 years I’m afraid, there’s little point scouting after the 6th or 7th season because the players will never reach their potential after that (not enough time to grow)
Hi Friend, thank you for the tips they are great, I used that trick of reloading for about 4 times until I got a Belgian with 14yo OVR (53-73) and potential (71-91). Just as a comment my brother got a 16yo with 75!! and he is now 82 and 19!! I hope I’ll have one like that.
I have just two questions:
I have a chinese with 63 and 16 years and it said that his potential were between 84 and 90, and my question is, is this true? because he just have been growing for 2 points per season, and I thought it would be more. he is now 67 and 18, should I sell him?
And, do you know how to spot a player with 5* skills? because I haven’t seen any player who had been scouted, with those stars.
Thank you for the help friend. I’m not sure if my english it’s ok sorry if i wrote something wrong.
Sorry about the late response, real life has been hectic
Has he installed the November update? Because if he has then 75 OVR age 16 is incredible! It’s really good even if he hasn’t installed it. (The update slowed down player growth). The best scouted player I’ve got is a striker who is 77 aged 20 or 21 (I forget which). How has that Belgian player turned out for you?
Well if your Chinese player grows 2 points every season then he’ll be 85 OVR when he’s 27 – if he has a potential range of 84-90 then that could well be correct. Keep him for now and see how he develops, he could do well. Before the November update he might have reached 85 OVR by the time he was 22 or 23, now you’ll have to wait until he’s around 27, but he should still reach it.
There’s no way to spot 5* skills, it’s all luck unfortunately. I’ve only ever seen one scouted player with 5* skills, and he’s on a different team.
No we haven´t download the november update, and now we won’t thank you, my brother sold him to Real Madrid, because he said that player didn’t run fast, and his potential was 80-86., his final OVR was 84
and the belgian I got was 66 and 16 years when I promoted him; unfortunately I saved another game where my game was, and my progress was deleted 😥
Now I’m playing in a previous game I had saved, and now I have neither the chinese nor the Belgian. But now I have another chinese who is 17 years and 59 OVR, but his potential is 85-91 I think I’ll have faith in him and keep him 😛 let´s se if he gets that, I think I’m getting good chinese players because who is bringing them to me is a chinese with 5* and 5* .
Thank you for the answers friend
Ah I see. That’s the thing about playing without the November update – players grow so fast, but they reach their potential very quickly and then stop growing.
How’s your career mode going now? Is that Chinese player developing well? Have you found any other gems?
any way to find out a player’s appropriate potential?
Do you mean their actual potential? Because I don’t think you can. However, if you go to the EA Creation Centre and put in your player’s position, age and all his stats, you can then click “generate potential”. I don’t think it’s a cast-iron guarantee of what their potential is, but I think it could be quite accurate. Take it as a rough guide rather than an absolute guaranteed potential.
Hey thx for taking the time to put all of this on paper! I figured most of it out by myself though but de free agent trick was helpfull! My question is, is it possible for scouted players to change ‘style’ because all my scouted players have short sleeves and their shirts tucked in! Which is a bit of an outdated style dont you think? And something i find weird is that you cant scout the new messi or neymar, players who have been extremely skilled from a young age on i hope you answer my question and excuse me for my bad english (dutch)
Sorry for the late response, real life has been hectic
Unfortunately it’s not possible for their style to change, they’ll always have short sleeves and tucked-in shirts (even the goalkeepers). Each scouted player can have different boots from other scouted players, however. (In fact it seems that scouted players are more likely to have brightly-coloured boots than regular black ones).
Well I think you can scout players like the new Messi or Neymar, but only really if you haven’t installed the November patch. Because that patch slowed down growth dramatically, finding a 20 year old with OVR 80+ is just impossible now. Scouted players will grow to be incredible, it just takes longer than it used to now.
im managing swindon in the npower league one i have roughly 400 thousand pounds should i sell a couple of my starting players to buy a 3 star scout
Yes I think so. Keep these 5 for sure though: Cox (potential 74), Ritchie (potential 71), Rooney (potential 71), Caddis (potential 69) and Murray (potential 68), as they’re your most promising players for now.
Lower league teams hardly have any money and so can’t afford to buy many decent players. However, you should definitely buy a scout as soon as you can afford one and then reload your reports until you get some good players, as that is a very cheap way to get lots of very promising players.
Hope this helps.
I noticed that after the first season on career mode, mario gotze grew from an 84 to an 87 or 88 (i dont remember exactly which one). I thought that the patch restricted growth to 2 per season. What gives?
oh and he was on a cpu team
Growth on CPU teams is often very fast, for some reason.
The patch doesn’t restrict how much a player can grow per season, as this all depends on how often they play, what their potential is, etc. 2 per season is what many (perhaps most) players get on average, but there can be big jumps (for example, I’ve had a few players who have grown 4 points per season even though I’ve installed the patch).
Make sure you look up a player’s potential at http://www.fifafanatic.com because that will help. A player who is rated 65 but has a potential of 85 will probably grow more than 2 per season, whereas a player who is OVR 65 but has potential 75 will probably grow less than 2 per season.
hey just wanted to thank you for this… it explains so much! Also i am so happy with my youth academy right now… have loads of players that are going to be beast. i have:
ST 75-91Pot and 58-72 ovr at 14(England)
ST 78-84Pot and 59-63 ovr at 14(Spain)
LW79-85Pot and 59-63 ovr at 15(Argentina)
GK 72-91Pot and 52-68 ovr at 15(Brazil)
CM 78-91Pot and 52-62 ovr at 15(Brazil)
thanks to this article i knew who to sign and where to look for great players… thx so much!
No problem, I’m really glad you find it useful 🙂
Let me know how these players develop, you have an awesome-looking academy. That English striker will be incredible!
The only problem I find is that I often end up scouting too much and having so many players in my academy that I don’t have time to play them all lol
thanks for this guide. greetings from the Netherlands
No problem!
I was wondering, how do you get your scout to continue scouting a youngster without actually signing him? I tried doing it before, but it couldn’t seem to work. For example, the scout finds lists down 5 youngsters, I reject 4 of them, then choose to continue scouting the last one, but nothing happens, and the screen remains there as though I hadn’t chosen anything, I try that several times, then eventually just sign the player to my academy so that I can continue my game. Does anyone know how to continue scouting without signing?
Ah I think I know what you’ve done. Do you select the guy you want to keep watching and click “continue scouting”? What you have to do is remove all the players you don’t want, then click the back button (B on xbox or square on PS3 I think) and it will come up with a message saying something like “all players on this list will be scouted further”. Click OK and it’ll watch him for another month and give you a more detailed report next time. Just clicking “continue scouting” when you selected a player is just an answer you select to make that little message box go away (I think the only other option is “reject player”), so you need to actually back out of the scouting report screen itself in order to make it work.
Also, the longer you keep a player on your reports without signing him, the more likely it is he’ll be signed to another team’s academy. However, if you get a message saying he’s been taken by another team, just reload – these messages are semi-random, so it probably won’t come up again if you reload 🙂
Hope that helps.
I see, many thanks for the info, much appreciated 😀
Glad I could help 😀
Hello,
first off I want to say I really love your guide. I’ve been scouting players in my career from the beginning (I’m currently in the year 2023) and have always used the reload method for scouting players. I Came up with some great results, some of the best being:
– Victor Negrao – Brazil – striker: He’s currently 18 and 90, but reached 80 when he was 16! He also is a distance shooter, clinical finisher and poacher.
– Jorge Paneira – Brazil – striker: he’s currently 19 and 87 and reached 79 when he was 16.He also is a distance shooter, clinical finisher and poacher.
– Erik Loundanes Nouri – Norway – defender: He is currently 16 and 80 and allready has 2 shields; tactician and tackler. Hell of a guy, he is also my team captain. 😀
My whole team exists of youth talents such as the players above. Once they turn 18, I sell them to a major club such as Manchester Utd. or F.C.Barcelona. Up until now I’ve provided clubs with more than 50 of these players and I’m still going strong. I do however have some questions:
1. What do you reckon is the best country to scout for talented keepers? (For I’ve found they are incredibly hard to get…)
2. Are you sure Fifa 12 randomly puts together scout players? (Cause I think I’ve emptied Spain: I only get players called Julio Gutieres!!!! Ever experienced that?)
3. How dependent do you think youth players are of their form and match ratings? (I still can’t really notice the effect of a bad form / match on their growth…)
Thanks in advance and keep up the good work.
F. Beerens, Holland.
Hi Fabian, glad you like the guide!
Those players are incredible… age 18 and 90 OVR?! Or did you mean age 18 and max potential 90? Clearly you’re playing pre-patch, as that kind of growth is impossible post-patch! Great finds 😀 Also, your club captain will become a complete defender once he gets either the strength or aerial threat shield, so he will be incredible 🙂
There isn’t a best country for any best position. I noticed that after the November patch (the one that slowed down growth) I just couldn’t find goalkeepers of the same quality as I was before. I spent an age searching England for one and the best I could find was OVR 61 age 14. HOWEVER, since then he’s age 21 and OVR 81 – twenty points of growth in 7 seasons! (Which is awesome post-patch). So I think you need to bite the bullet and take one on who has good potential, as he will probably grow very fast. Just make sure you give him as much game time as possible. When I promoted my goalkeeper he was 70 OVR age 18, so I sold my first team keeper (OVR 81) and bought one whose OVR was 71 (he’d reached his potential). My scouted GK’s OVR quickly surpassed the OVR of this new keeper. Once a player knows he is second best he doesn’t complain as much as if he was the best in that position. My original keeper, Alex Smithies, complained loads when I started using my scouted keeper instead. So if you want to develop your scouted goalkeeper and give him lots of game time, make sure your backup keeper isn’t as good as him.
I am definitely sure. What you mention is actually a glitch that I’ve seen others talk about. It seems that once you scout a certain country for too long FIFA seems to run out of names. If you look closely the players on the reports with the same name will actually have different stats – they’re all different players, but annoyingly they all have the same name! Try scouting somewhere else for a while. It could be that this will reset the names for Spain, but even if it doesn’t it’s always good to look in different countries 🙂
Yeah I don’t know about match ratings. I think they’re quite important, but game time is probably more important. Then again, I’ve had players go up a point even when they were sitting in the reserves that week, so I’m not really sure. As long as you try to play them as much as possible you can’t go far wrong 🙂
Hope this is useful!
Thank you for your time and effords, they’re much appreciated! And the reason I can achieve growth like that is because I only take players above 65 (when they are 15) or 60 (when they are 14), only the strongest survive the cut. I also let them play every game and because I’m in the year 2028 they’re playing against old farts and therefore always score match ratings above 8,5. By the way, my newest prodigy is Adam Lia – 17 years old and 87 from Australia, so it was true what you said about FIfa having an unlimited amount of scout players… Thank you! 😀
Ah I see. God old pre-patch 😛 that kind of growth simply doesn’t happen on post-patch unfortunately, you have to be much more patience but it’s worth it in the end 🙂 Even so, the best 17 year old I had pre-patch was OVR 78 or 77 I think, so you’ve easily beaten me on that one 😛
Hey thanks a lot your article helped me a lot! Thanks to your tips, I managed to scout a 15 year old with ovr 62-66 Japanese CB Masao Akita with specialties slide tackle, interceptions and stand tackle. A pity his potential is 78-84, but i think he should able to reach 80+ with lots of game time, is that correct?
Note: Using Sheffield Wed and in 2nd season now with a 3*3* scout, not bad…
Hey thanks for the post! I find it pretty comprehensive and awesome!
I followed your tips and managed to scout a 15 yr old Japanese CB named Masao Akita and he is rated ovr 62-66. His specialties are stand tackle, interceptions and slide tackle respectively. However, I find it a pity that his potential is 78 – 84. But I am sure with enough playing time he should be able to hit min 80, right?
Thanks 🙂
I expect so, his actual potential will be somewhere in that range of 78-84, usually it’s around the middle (but no guarantee). Just play him as much as you can and he’ll reach a really good OVR.
P.S. sorry for the late reply. I have to approve each message before it shows up on the site; I did get your original message, but I’ve been so busy recently that I haven’t had time to approve and respond to it until now.
No problem, thanks for the reply.
Just to add, don’t worry too much about his potential range, it could be that his actual potential is 84, which would be awesome. I have a Japanese CB whose potential range was 81-87, but he’s only 21 years old and already is OVR 79, so I expect his real potential to be at least 85, maybe 86 or 87. The potential range is just a guide – sometimes his actual potential is in the middle, but sometimes it could be at the top end (likewise, it could be at the bottom end of the range).
Ha, I’m using Sheffield United on my CM 🙂 maybe Sheffield is an attractive city to promising Japanese footballers 😛
Hi Waterish
I need your advice on where to find good youth players cause i am struggling to find any good scouted players apart from 3 good players
A Brasilian CB 66-70 ovr and 83-89 pot age 15
A Mexican ST 62 ovr and 80+ pot age 17
A Uruguayan ST 58 ovr and 80+ pot age 16
Well I think any country can produce good players. Unfortunately if you want to find the best players often you just have to bite the bullet and reload time after time until you get a good one.
No country specialises in any position though. Despite having a reputation for producing great defenders, Italy won’t be the best place to look for them on the game, it just doesn’t work that way.
It also depends on how good your scout is. A 1/1 scout can find good players, no doubt, but a 5/5 scout is more likely to.
This’ll really help out my MM thanks! Btw, if you guys need a good RM/CM/CAM. Buy Simone Verdi, he’s an absolute beast. He hasn’t grown any and he’s 20 which is a downer but at 67 he tears the opposition apart, easily. And he has a potential of 85 so just imagine what he’ll do at that OVR O.o
He is a really good one, especially with his 5* weak foot. His potential is reduced to 78 after the winter update though, so just make sure you’re not playing with those squads 🙂
Also, if you want to make him grow as much as possible, just make sure you give him as much game time as you can, otherwise he’ll just stall.
Old squads before the update, 😛 and I do play him all the time. He always sets up goals and last game he saved my team, 2-0 and he ended up bagging 4 to make a comeback. But still has only grown one point
Btw Adryan is another beast he’s at 69 and about as good if not better than Verdi, just slower though
I had the same thing actually. On the old squads I loaned Verdi in for 2 seasons but he barely grew, so decided not to buy him. 4 goals in one game is pretty incredible though 🙂
I agree about Aryan. I bought him on a different CM and he’s so good. He’s become a speedster and got the dribbler badge, and his free kicks and distance shooting are both awesome. Like Verdi I loaned him for two seasons first and he was incredible, but he did actually grow as well. He’s a highly recommended purchase.
The problem is no one wanted him on loan or Adryan or Fernando haha. But good thing though, they’re all a huge help to my team. But yes Adryan was an amazing purchase for only 7 mil he’s more than worth it. Shame Verdi is a late bloomer lol. Btw Fernando is incredible, 74 OVR now and his interceptions are at 91. Recommended purchase
So has Verdi grown much now? Fernando is awesome, his passing, vision and interceptions are all incredible. Shame his tackling isn’t as good, but that doesn’t matter too much – he’s strong and quick, so can more or less make up for it.
Hello. Do you know how to get scouted players who have two positions? I often find that they ONLY have one position upon signing. For instance, a scouted player has a position of RM, but I have players who can play RM / RW / CM and there are forwards who can play CF / ST / LW etc.
Anyone know how to mould players from your youth squad to play in other positions comfortably?
Scouted players will only ever have one ‘preferred’ position listed. HOWEVER, this doesn’t mean that this is the only position they can play in. A RM may be good as a RW, a LB may be good as a CB, etc, but it just won’t be listed. You just need to look at the player’s stats and see whether they’d be suitable in other positions.
Quite often scouted players are mispositioned – you may find a LW who has great finishing but only average dribbling. In this case he is actually a striker, but for some reason has been given the position LW. Use him as a striker. (Unfortunately his OVR will be lower than it should be, but disregard it, it would go up if you play him as a striker). So in this instance players can have multiple positions even though they are not listed.
I personally find that the ‘big 9’ are not the best for me, I often find my best in Africa, especially Ivory Coast, Ghana (I got a 66 OVR with 85-91 Potential from there), Morocco, Cameroon
Well like I said, you can find awesome players in any country 🙂 I found some really good ones in Japan recently, for example. I’ll have to try Africa, haven’t tried there or Australia much.
I haven’t actually got anyone good from Germany, England or France, my best are always from Brazil or Africa, and sometimes Italy or Spain. I’m currently trying all of the countries on one of my saves
Thanks to reloading loads I’ve had awesome players from practically every country I’ve scouted in. For example, the first country where I found millions of great players was Spain, but that’s also because it was the first place where I really started reloading lots. Possibly my favourite player I found was a Russian GK who was OVR 77 by the time he was just 17 (pre-patch, obviously!), made better by the fact that I found him without reloading. But Russia may not be so good for you, that’s just how the scouting system works I guess.
Does anyone know how to delete the November patch? Lack of growth is starting to annoy me. -___
Well on PS3 and PC I think there is a file actually named as the November update in your FIFA 12 system info (i.e. if you go to the PS3 dashboard and go to system settings and find the FIFA 12 files, it should be in there). I’m not sure about Xbox 360, although I’ve heard that if you delete the system cache or the UGC file in the FIFA 12 files then it should restore the game to pre-patch (obviously that will also clear anything like saved squads and your Virtual Pro, so be careful).
I’m not entirely sure about any of them myself, probably best to have a look on the various FIFA 12 forums on the internet and see if there are any explanations there.
amazing job on the guide m8, it helped my scouting a lot.. i used to only take potential rating into account so this really helped. Quick question, does anyone know how long it usually takes before players reach their full potential? If they only increase 2 points per season i’m screwed cause i’m a father of 2 youngsters and don’t usually have hours to play. Another question, do any of you sim your games or do you actually play all of them? Does simming affect the growth of your youth players?
Glad you found it useful 🙂
Regarding growth, it depends whether you’re playing post-patch or pre-patch. In November 2011 EA released a patch which slowed growth right down. Before the patch players were reaching their potential around age 23-24, but with the patch installed they’ll reach it around age 27-28. I think you should play your youths as much as possible. If they have lots of growing to do (i.e. if they have a high potential) then they’ll grow quicker. If you really can’t play them then you should sell them to a team that will play them (when you get an offer click stall, then check out that team in the transfer screen to see if you player would start every game). Once they’ve been at that team for a few seasons they should have grown really well, at which point you can buy them back if you wish.
Regarding simming, I don’t think it makes a difference. I sim almost all my games and my players grow really well. Growth is basically about 2 things – game time and good performances. I simmed a game, roughly had a look at my players’ ratings afterwards, then reloaded and played the game (and got a similar scoreline). My players’ ratings in both cases were very similar, so I don’t think it matters. (I’d always thought players got better ratings if you sim, but I guess not).
Hope this is useful.
Mini-update: The Japanese 15 yr old CB Masao Akita has grown to a 63-67, so I guess with any luck by 16 he should be around 65 and above!
My 2nd trip to England with the 3/3 scout yielded nothing spectacular, but the last on my last trip to Spain, I found a 14-year old Xavi Perez currently with OVR 51-69 and potential 73-91. His position still not sorted out yet though, as he still has ST,RW and CM. Looking good!
P.S. @ Waterish: Yea maybe Japanese players love Sheffield lol.
Well I imagine that he’s probably already around OVR 65 aged 15 🙂 so there’s a good chance he’ll be OVR 67 or 68 by the time he hits 16. Personally I’d wait until he’s 17 at the start of a season before offering him a contract, that way you can give him as much time to grow with no competition for starting places (like he would have when you promote him).
Xavi Perez looks good as well! I forgot to say it in the guide, but when you see a scouted players’ list of positions, the one in the top left will always be his final one. So if ST is what is listed in the top left, then that’ll be his actual position. To find out for sure (and to see his OVR) you could always release him to the free agents, then reload. Just to make it clear what I mean about his actual position, let’s say his list of positions looks like this on the scouting screen:
ST, RW, LW
CM, RM
Then he will be a ST.
Yup yup I see what you mean. Anyway, Perez has narrowed down to a ST like what you said, and his OVR has changed to 61-69 and potential 81-91.
I also realised that the stats under the Strengths tab of the youth player change as the player grows. For example, Masao Akita used to have stand tackle, interceptions and slide tackle under “Strengths” at first, then it changed to stand tackle, interceptions and reactions after a while as he grew.
He’s going to be awesome, usually players with 81-91 potential usually narrow down to around 84-90 🙂
Yep, that reflects them growing whilst in the academy. Each month a scouted player will have a certain number of growth points distributed around his stats. Interestingly, if you reload then they are often distributed differently. So one month his strengths could be stand tackle, interceptions and slide tackle then one month later they’ll be interceptions, stand, slide; but if you reload, that 2nd month they may stay the same as the first month. His stats will have improved, just in different ways. Sometimes this means the difference between a player growing or not growing from one month to the next.
I ended up selling him at the end of the season after he was still stuck on 69. Was going to buy him back after a few seasons since no one wanted to get him on loan, but my career mode froze up. FUUUU….btw Fernando on my new save is now up to 77. Barely into the second season.
Ah yes doing a long-term loan is always a good idea, as long as you give him to a team that will play him in the first team all the time.
Are you playing with the winter squads update? Fernando’s OVR went slightly down to 83
Yeah I sold him to a really low level team, but dang save froze up. One question! Does manager mode freeze up too? Or is it just player/manager mode that’s filled with bugs?
Nope, saw everyone’s potential go down on the FifaFanatic list so I decided not to download the new squads. I prefer 87 Fernando thank you very much. 😛
Well I’ve never done a player/manager CM before so I wouldn’t know. Before the November patch there used to be a glitch with custom squads that would put all sorts of players with -23842 OVR in random positions on your team, then freeze the game, but thankfully that’s been fixed now. Don’t really know of any other unfixed bugs that freeze the game up on a regular basis though.
I thought that at first, but then I realised that all the players who have gone down have just been replaced with others. For example, before the update I think Destro’s potential was 79, now it’s 87. Adam Maher was nowhere before, I don’t even know what his potential, but it was below 80, now it’s 88. Leali has had his potential go up from 79 to 88. There are plenty of others like that. Part of the fun of making the updated So You Want A articles (on my new website) was finding all these new high potential players. And there are plenty of really cheap ones too 🙂
Thanks for the info. I have a couple scouted players that have made their way to my first team. For some reason i cant stand the fact that they have the crappy ea generic brand cleats. Is there any way to get them nicer cleats?
Unfortunately not, they always come with EA boots. On the plus side, at least different scouted players will have different coloured ones, so they’re not all just in the standard black ones.
Nice works, this actually helps.
Regarding to the scouting network, whenever we set up a scouting network, the scout will recommnend a few potential players and we get the monthly reports of these players also. Then, in case we want this scout to find out more young players, what can I do? Do I have to re – set up the scouting network? if yes, do I still receive the monthly reports from scout about existing young players?.
Actually I wanna to get as much as potential players from scouting network but I dont know how to do this because we only have 3 scouts.
Thanks a lot 😀
When you send a scout somewhere he will report back to you every month with a fresh batch of new players that he’s found. You can then decide whether you want to sign them or not. This will continue for however long you’ve sent him out there for (3 months, 6 months or 9 months). I’d recommend waiting until his trip has finished before sending him anywhere else, otherwise you’ve wasted the money you initially spent on sending him on his first trip.
Don’t sign too many players though, otherwise you won’t be able to give them all enough game time and then they won’t grow as well as they should!
Glad the guide helped you 🙂
I signed right away in the first scout report a 14-year-old Italian (I’m looking for a defensive minded so basically I want a CB) with potential of 72-91 and his overall is 56-78 will he be a world beater?
Also for more information, I used your idea of looking my player’s overall by creating a new save naming it “Test 1” as you, so then before releasing my player I looked for free agent players with my player attributes (interceptions and reactions, also the other attribute is stand tackle but still has ? in it so I searched it with the first two) and found a 16 year old Italian CB with 58 OVR (before releasing my player). Now after releasing him and looked for the same attributes in the free agent players, there was a NEW 16-year old Italian CB with 64 OVR!!! Does that mean that my player when he gets to be 16 his OVR will be 64 or can it be better? Also a quicknote: my player hasn’t been in my youth academy for a week, does this affects? Also he was not recommended by my scout (which for was really wrong!!!) but I signed because of what you wrote. Also this is my first visit to your blog and I have to tell that it is really COOL!!! Also for my career can you tell if it was a good idea that I’m using the team “Palermo” from “Serie A” it has many good young talents but a huge squad, so I want to know it was a good choice, also how do you know what is the potetial of player like Lucas Piazon, Lorenzo Ariaudo, or Simone Verdi, I don’t know how so please tell me. Thanks!!!
Ah well that 64 OVR player is your 14 year old that you released! First off, I’d sign that 58 OVR player, he will probably turn out very nicely. Secondly, that means your 14 year old CB is rated 64, which is incredible for a 14 year old! The reason he’s become a 16 year old in the free agents is because 16 is the minimum age a player can be in your first team (not youth academy), so the game bumps up that player’s age when he’s released.
So you must hold on to that player! If his OVR is 64 at age 14, imagine what it’ll be when he’s 16 or 17 and able to be signed! It should be around 70, which is incredible. He’ll be a world beater alright. If I were you I’d leave him in the academy until he’s 17 at the start of a season (if you see what I mean). That way you can maximise his growth time, as players in your academy grow as fast as if they were playing every game in the first team, which obviously you may not be able to guarantee.
Also, don’t worry about how long he’s been scouted for, it doesn’t matter. And I completely ignore whether a player is recommended or not, as you can see it’s often very wrong! What’s more, it’s actually totally random. A player may be recommended by your scout, then you can reload and look again and on the next report he won’t be recommended. It’s random, so I just totally ignore it.
Palermo is a good squad, but you may have to sell some players, otherwise they’ll start complaining about not playing, etc. But the good thing is that you’ve got lots of high potential players already (e.g. Abel Hernandez!), so that means you don’t need to buy so many players in order to improve your squad.
Finally, I use FIFA Fanatic‘s website. Be sure to check out the links at the top of his page too, he has lots of articles on cheaper lower league players, the best players in the game regardless of age, etc.
Hope this all helps 🙂
Looks like he’ll be awesome. Have his OVR and potential ranges narrowed down? Have you managed to find out his actual OVR by releasing him yet?
I started a league mode in the A League, and am about 9 seasons in. However, I wondered if the fact that the season is only around 30 games long stems the growth of my youngsters as they only seem to improve 1, or sometimes 2 points a year if they play every game. Also does how their playing position effect their stats impovement? Say i play a winger in an attacking centre mid role, would his vision/short passing improve rather than crossing etc.
cheers.
It probably does affect it, but probably only slightly. Player growth is affected by game time, but also by performance. In fact there are other factors that I’m not even sure about – on my Huddersfield CM, Alex Smithies grew a point even though he hadn’t played in 2 weeks. Also, if a player has high potential then he will grow well anyway. For example, I bought El Shaarawy on a different career mode, and he was rated around 77 age 23. He only grew 1 point the next season, despite playing loads, but the next 2 seasons he grew 4 points each! This was because he didn’t have much time until he stopped growing, but he had a really high potential, so the game tried to squeeze his growth into his remaining seasons. So I wouldn’t worry too much, if you have high potential players then they will grow. Sometimes they’ll have a blip and only grow 1-2 points per season, and other times they’ll grow really well. I think some players grow well at the start of their careers, some at the end, and some just grow steadily throughout.
With regards to playing people out of positions, I honestly don’t know how it affects growth. Since you made your post have your noticed anything about that player’s growth? Are his CAM stats going up faster than his winger stats?
Actually, now that I think about it, I *think* a player’s default position stats will go up the most. For most of the time I’ve had him, I’ve played El Shaarawy at RM or LM (rather than CAM). His dribbling and passing stats have gone up really well, but his crossing hasn’t gone up so much.
Hope this is useful.
Hi, can you tell how to scout a right back or left back, I put “defensive minded” but they only bring really tall players, e.g. a 14 year old with 164cm tall so by experience I know that his final height will be like 193cm which is not in my opinion able to operate on the flancks, also the same game will label him just as Centre Back they just get attributes in tackling, marking, interceptions etc. So do I just put the scout to find “any” type of player and have luck or more like “technically gifted” which is more like “any” or do I put to search “Physically Strong”?
A lot of people (myself included) have found that they scout a lot more good CBs than full backs. My theory is that CBs have less attributes than need to be good in order to get a high OVR. For instance, a good CB would have to have decent marking, stand & slide tackling, interceptions, then probably strength too. So that’s only 4 or 5 stats that have to be good. By contrast, a full back would have to have all of those high (maybe not strength so much), but also good crossing, and arguably also good passing, dribbling, speed and vision. So a full back has more stats that need to be high, and the chances of all those being high is lower than if he just needed 4 or 5 stats to be high (as CBs need). So that’s why I think we always seem to find more CBs with good OVR and potential than other positions. So unfortunately you just need to scout ‘defensive minded’ players and hope for the best. Hopefully this is something that gets fixed in FIFA 13.
You also have to be careful when you find full backs that they’re not just mispositioned wingers (i.e. their best stats being crossing, passing, dribbling, etc), as their OVRs will be low.
Ok, another (and final?)update! I have promoted CB Masao Akita to the first team and as you predicted, he’s a 68 (which is awesome for a 16 year-old). His stand tackle, marking, interception and slide tackle are 78, 74, 72 and 72 respectively. Scary! o.O
Oh, and Xavi Perez has unfortunately dipped to 82-88 potential with 62-66 OVR. Pity that. 😦 But he’s still 15, so there’s a lot of time for him to develop.
Anyway thanks for all the tips shared on this page! It has really helped me a lot!
That’s awesome 🙂 well it’d be good to see how he eventually ends up.
And don’t worry about Xavi Perez, it could be that his potential is 87 or 88. That’s still within his potential range, right? His actual potential isn’t necessarily right in the middle.
No problem 🙂
This is the best players in my youth academy right now, October 2014:
(I’m playing with juve so i just scout italian/french/brazil players.(Belgian players sometimes)
Alessandro Galloppa – 16 years old – RW – overall: 60-64 – potential: 80-86.
Dani Paneira – 17 years old – CB – overall: 62-66 – potential: 85-91.
Federico Moretti – 17 years old – LW – overall: 62-66 – potential:83-89 .(has 79 acceleration, 76 agility)
Joao Paneira(Just got him) – 15 years old – CB/CM/RB – overall: 51-71 – potential:70-91
(Dani’s brother maybe? 😉
Junior Losilla – 14 years old – ST – overall:55-59! – potential:84-90
Jéròme Dramé – 15 years old – RM – overall: 56-60(Quite ok) – potential:83-89
Marco Girasole – 16 years old – CB – overall: 69-73!!! – potential:82-88 (GREAT PLAYER!!!)
Pedro Abrao – 15 years old – LB/LM – overall:50-68 – potential:68-91
Peter Sels – 16 years old – RW – overall: 60-64 – potential:81-87
Raffaele Paolucci – 16 years old – CB – overall:62-66 – potential: 85-91
Roberto Busellato – 16 years old – LB – overall:65-69 – potential: 83-89
(ALSO A GREAT PLAYER!)
Simone Miccoli – 14 years old – overall:47-59 – potential: 77-91
Thiago Rocha – 15 years old – CB – overall:53-67 – potential: 73-91
I will have big trouble to select the two CB’s that will be in my starting 11 in the future haha. I think it will be : CBs: Marco Girasole & Raffaele Paolucci and LB : Roberto Busellato 🙂 I’ve searched for a RB for a long time and haven’t found one yet.
But what do you think ,Is there any player(s) i should release ? I’m thinking about Peter Sels,Federico Moretti and Dani Paneira. right now Dani’s and Federico’s overall is probably 64, is it good for a 17 year old or what do you think?
And one more question,Iv’e heard that your players will have better growth if you play offline, Is that true?
Btw thank you for this guide It really helped me!
You have some incredible players there, especially Busellato an Girasole! I definitely wouldn’t release any of them, but you should loan out/sell any who you can’t guarantee consistent first team action for. Unfortunately you can’t loan or sell them right after promoting them, you have to wait a season and then try. However, make sure you loan or sell them to teams that will definitely play them (when you get an offer, click stall and then check out the other team in the transfer window). You could always try some ‘long-term loans’ whereby you sell them to a team that will play them all the time, then a couple of seasons later (after they’ve grown well) you buy them back. It may be expensive, but it’s a guaranteed way to have them grow lots.
Your players will grow more quickly if you don’t install the November update (you have to install it if you want to go online). Before the update players used to grow really fast (4-7 points per season typically). However, this of course meant they reached their potential really quickly, so career mode can easily become boring this way.
No problem, glad it helped 🙂
Thanks, 🙂
Unfortunately i play on Xbox so I don’t think i can uninstall the November Update
Well apparently you can if you delete the UGC data file, but I haven’t tried it myself so I can’t confirm it for sure. The best thing to do would be to check the EA FIFA 12 forums and see what people say there.
Hi there,sorry for the late reply,I’ve been very busy and my computer has crashed!
I have searched for the UGC file everywhere in my xbox and also in the ” My Fifa 12 ” thing ,and i can’t find It, the only things i find is all my career modes and all the goals i have saved and stuff but no UGC file, I must have installed it because my players only grow 2 points every season. I have been on many forums and seen other with the same problem,They don’t know what to do and neither do I.. some people say that i should contact EA Sports and ask them?
No problem. Hmm, very odd. I know of some people on the EA forum who said they were able to delete the file and go back to pre-patch. If you go to this page: http://forum.ea.com/uk/posts/list/2550/1052115.page and go about halfway down there’s a post by jblack007 that explains how to go back to pre-patch on Xbox.
Hope that solves it for you 🙂
Thanks alot ! 🙂
No problem, has it all worked for you?
Hi post is great, all I was wondering is do players grow quicker when you sim games or if you play them? Or does this not affect it?
I’m not so sure to be honest. In previous versions of FIFA I’d find that I’d get poor ratings even if I won the game, whereas simming didn’t have this problem. I think this is less of an issue in FIFA 12. However, goalkeepers still seem to get a raw deal if you play matches. If you play a game and win 3-0, and your keeper only has to make 1 save, he’ll get a bad rating. It seems the game calculates a keeper’s match rating based on how many saves he makes, so if the opposition are rubbish and never get a shot away, he’ll get a bad rating, even though he hasn’t played badly. So I think this is where simming could get your players better ratings. Other than that, though, I think playing and simming are about the same.
FIFA 13 will be out soon, but I’ll add my observations:
-Indeed, there are some countries that are more likely to yield great players. They are: Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Spain, Portugal and all countries encompassing Central Europe (France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria). Australia has the lowest great players odds, followed by North America and Rest of Asia. The rest is in between. However, the files ruling the probabilities can be edited at will (follow the dlc folder in FIFA 12 until you reach a list of ini files, then check out “youth_players”). Use “scout” as a reference for the regions you’re editing (as they’re coded in numbers).
-Good youth players (low 60s overall, low 80’s potential when they turn 16) but not world beaters can be pawned off for anywhere between 1M and 4M if you don’t feel like developing them.
-A young goaltender getting playing time grows at an insane rate. I have this Scottish youngster, 62 overall and 82-88 potential when he came out of the academy at 16. I decided to play ahead of my starter in the EPL because he was sucking for some reason. Alas, he performed far beyond expectations posting nine clean sheets in the EPL and helping my team to a FA and Europa Cup semi-finals finish! He was 71 by the end of the season! So if you got a promising goalie who you would like to be your starter, just play him. He’ll grow quickly.
I have to ask a question, though – it seems like it’s hell to successfully transfer a young player (I’m playing without the November update) because most of the times the contract negotiations “break down”. Only a fraction of the transfer offers I accept actually complete and it’s really annoying because I have 6 or 7 players I will never use just sitting there, and they’ll be worth peanuts in a season or two. Any way around that?
Cheers!
How do you know that certain countries produce less good players, or that Australia is the worst? In one of my CMs, the best scouted player that an AI team has found is Australian 😛
Are you playing pre-patch? I’m guessing so, because that’s incredible growth! But you’re right, goalkeepers grow really well because they don’t get very tired, so can play lots of games. If your sim then they are more likely to get good ratings than if you play games (old bug), so that helps too.
I know exactly what you mean about trying to sell young players. It’s impossible to sell them shortly after promoting them, because the game thinks they’ve only just joined your player (i.e. it thinks you’ve just bought them from another team). However, sometimes it’s because the board thinks you’ve sold too many players already, although there’s no way of knowing what that limit is! Hopefully this is something that will be cleared up in FIFA 13.
Yeah, I notice that I can easily sell my youth players after a season has gone by, but it’s a bit annoying to see surplus players sit on reserve and have their value dip as they get older without any attribute gains. Depreciating assets!
And about the country output, you can access the file that dictates the chances of finding certain tiers of players – there are four: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Naturally, Platinum are the best youngsters out there. Each set of regions have different probabilities for each kind of player. As found in youth_scout.ini the odds are:
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_0=15
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_1=5
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_2=2
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_3=6
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_4=14
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_5=8
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_6=13
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_7=7
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_8=3
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_9=1
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_10=1
YOUTH_PLAYER_PLATINUM_11=6
Where each number is:
// 0 = SUBREGION_ARGENTINA_BRAZIL,
// 1 = SUBREGION_REST_OF_SOUTH_AMERICA,
// 2 = SUBREGION_NORTH_AMERICA,
// 3 = SUBREGION_NORTHERN_EUROPE,
// 4 = SUBREGION_ITALY_SPAIN_PORTUGAL,
// 5 = SUBREGION_REST_OF_SOUTHERN_EUROPE,
// 6 = SUBREGION_CENTRAL_EUROPE,
// 7 = SUBREGION_REST_OF_EUROPE,
// 8 = SUBREGION_JAPAN_CHINA,
// 9 = SUBREGION_REST_OF_ASIA,
// 10 = SUBREGION_AUSTRALIA,
// 11 = SUBREGION_AFRICA,
So it can be seen that Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Portugal and every Central European country (including Switzerland and Austria!) is where you’re the most likely to find elite youngsters. On the other hand, it’s quite unlikely you’ll find an EPL star in Australia, Asia or North America and you’ll be better off looking elsewhere!
I also found on the scout.ini file that the higher the knowledge, the more likely you’re to find the better young players (Platinum), whereas experience dictates how likely your scout is to find the player type you’re looking for – so if you’re looking for “Any” young player, then experience actually doesn’t matter!
Accuracy of the report is dictated by whether the scout is operating in his country of origin or not. If yes, then the reports will more accurate.
There are a few other considerations as well – for instance, the likelihood of a player on your scouting reporting being taken by someone else is a factor of his potential (the higher, the more likely he is of being scouted), his country (haven’t figured out specifics yet) and the time the player has been on the report, all multiplied by your club’s prestige.
Cheers!
Oh my lord… this is one of the most awesome comments I’ve ever seen on this site! Thanks for the hugely useful info! 🙂 It confirms what a few people have suspected for a while (namely regarding the best regions, although I am surprised that all of Central Europe is in there). What I am more surprised about is that all regions are ranked. I thought there would be the top few and then the rest, but instead we see that there is a hierarchy that includes all regions.
Thanks again for the great find and really useful info regarding a scout’s experience and judgement (I’ve often wondered about these, EA should have made it very clear what each thing meant in the game).
So are you working on finding out any more info from the code?
(I don’t see a reply button for your last post so I’m replying to this one)
Unfortunately with school ending, work begins so I will have very little time to tinker with the data files. With that said, I will report on any new finding I have. FIFA 13 is just around the corner too, so maybe at some point it might be futile!
Cheers!
Awesome, cheers for the good work! Well I don’t know about that, it’s all useful data. Many people won’t get FIFA 13 as soon as it comes out, so any and all new info relating to FIFA 12 will be welcomed 🙂
Hey, I have a question. You are mentioning experience and knowledge. For me in the game it is experience and judgement. Which way around does it follow then? Does judgement dictate how good player you find, and experience the type?
I have been told by someone who has examined the game code that knowledge/judgement (same thing) determines how likely a scout is to find good players, whereas experience determines how likely a scout is to find the type of player you are looking for, e.g. playmaker, defensive minded, etc. So if you search for “any” then experience doesn’t matter at all!
I’m pretty sure that it’s possible to loan out a player that you’ve just promoted as I did with a couple of GK’s one from Japan and the other from China. I think it’s just harder than players that you’ve had in your squad for at least a season I don’t know.
Also I got a bit worried with earlier comments in this thread regarding simmed games actually being better than playing games lol as I play over 90% of games in my career, I only sim when I know it won’t affect my position in the league table.
I think you must be lucky because I’ve never managed to do it yet!
Re. your second point, I think FIFA 12 is better than previous versions. It used to be that you could win a game convincingly (whilst playing) but your players would still get poor ratings. That’s less of the case now (although it can still happen, e.g. if you have to grind out a result), but goalkeepers still get a raw deal. If you win easily and the opposition hardly has any shots on goal, your goalkeeper will get a poor rating because the game seems to calculate GK ratings based on how many saves they make. In this respect, it’s often better to sim. But other than that I wouldn’t worry. If you’ve got a high potential GK then he will still grow well, regardless of whether you play or sim.
Hey great guide by the way it has helped me out with the scouting in my carreer mode. I had two seasons with sporting lisbon and scouted some decent players in my second seasn. But I wanted another challenge in a different league so I switched to marseille at the end of the second season. Now some of my youth players were not 16 yet so I could not promote them to the first team before I left. So my question is: are the players lost that were in my youth squad for sporting lisbon? i.e. will the computer promote these youth players to the first team once they reach 16 years of age or older, so that I could potentially buy them when playing a different team or is that not possible?
I think they stay in Sporting’s youth academy, so they’ll get promoted when they’re 16 and you should be able to buy them if you want. I’m not 100% sure though, so let me know how it turns out for you.
Well it turns out that some of the youth players from the Sporting Lisbon youth squad are released as free agents, but for some reason their names change. I found them because they were one of the only 16 year old free agents, played in the similar position, had similar overall ratings, and were from the same country like Paraguay. So I guess the scouted players still do exist its just they decided to change their names.
Ah yes, it’s the same players. When a player is released from your youth academy he automatically becomes 16 and his name changes, but everything else is the same. You can release a 14 year old and he will become 16, which is annoying because it means you lose 2 years of growth! (Since his OVR doesn’t change). So did you sign those youth players? Do you know roughly how old they would have been when you left Sporting Lisbon?
Is there such a thing as a 2/2 scout because I started a career with Crewe and I don’t have enough money. I know that it’s still possible to find great potential with a 1/1 scout but seeing as my team already consist of young players I just want to hire the best scout that I could afford.
Found one on my first friendly!
Ah excellent 🙂 Has he found anyone decent yet?
Yeah he found a decent LB but that said LB opted to leave my youth academy so I released him but he popped up as a free agent so I snagged him and he was under the SAME NAME 🙂
If a player is 16+ when you release him then he’ll keep the same name. If not then that’s a bit of a coincidence! 😛 how is he developing now?
He’s my starting LB and I think he’s at 55 at the moment, he already grew a point before the mid-season transfer window and it’s his first season.
playing as real and in my fourth season, i picked a kid from portugal named christiano santos in my first year and now he is an 84 RW in his second year as a pro thanks this post helped a ton.
he had a potential of 91 and i think i can go higher than that
Really? That’s crazy. What was he when you promoted him? This is the beauty of playing pre-patch, your players become amazing so quickly!
I have 2 main saves. On one I have an 18 year old CB from Italy, and I gave him first team football on my Chelsea squad when he was just 16. Started out at 65 and by the second season (almost 3rd) he’s now 75. I have Pique, Silva, Criscito, Chiellini, but Vivian (Youth Player) is hands down the best. His standing tackle is at 91 I think and he’s an absolute beast, stopped Messi and Sanchez as if they were nothing. O.o
Oops and on my other save I have an RW from China named Zhao. He first team football at the age of 16 (66) and he’s now 17, second season and is rated 71. Also another Youth Player but he’s rated 68, yet he always scores when I include him in the squad. Absolute beast, has 7 goals to his name already and is 16.
And I just stumbled onto a 14 year old CB from Mexico. I checked his OVR and it’s at 64. O.O with potential of 91.
Wow great find, he’ll be a world beater for sure 🙂
Good stuff, how are they developing now?
That’s awesome, definitely keep playing him then because he’s just going to get better and better.
This is the best one I have found! I recommend searching for Attacker in Norway, it is a small country … http://fmfile.com/opplastninger/1330211548.jpgbut with very high potentially good players 🙂
He looks awesome, how is he doing now?
I had this player called Jason Spear from England. 16 year old. I released him because he wouldn’t accept my contract. He was on the free agent list but I couldn’t sign him because I wasn’t in the transfer window. So I finshed my season and went to sign him but he wasn’t there. I searched his last name and he’s just not there. His overall was 67 for a 16 year old! Any help. Don’t wanna lose this guy.
It’s a really frustrating glitch unfortunately. Sometimes your youth players will request 4 year contracts, but thanks to the November patch you can’t offer more than a 3 year contract. Yep, EA actually introduced a bug to the game through patch that was meant to fix things. Anyway, at the start of a new season go to your youth squad and click on all the players who are 16 or over. On the contract screen, if it says 4 years that means you may have this problem. There is a solution – release the player in a transfer window and sign him, as you know. That’s what you can do to prevent it happening again.
With regards to your player that you think you’ve lost, do you have an earlier backup save that you can go back to? If so, reload it and see if you can release him in a transfer window. If you can’t, then if he keeps bugging you for a contract you could try reloading every time it happens – the message seems to come up a few times, then stops. You could then try signing him at the start of the next season, because every season his contract demands will change, so chances are he won’t want a 4 year contract again.
If none of this works then unfortunately I don’t think you can save him. It’s so frustrating, I know, and it’s a problem that didn’t exist before. Before the November patch players would demand up to 5 year contracts, but you could offer that to them. Now suddenly you can’t offer that, but sometimes they still want long contracts. It doesn’t make sense at all.
Hopefully you can retrieve your player, let me know if it works out.
Hey , i have a question , i had 3 promising 14 year-old youngsters scouted with 91 potential , i was going to sign them but then my scout finished , do you know where there are going to finish? other clubs? free player?
Sometimes they will end up in the free agents. I did this myself and luckily managed to find most of them in the free agents again, so look there first. Regardless of how old they were when you were scouting, they will now all be 16 years old. Their names will also have changed, unless they were 16 when they were released. In my opinion, if you find any very young players in the free agents with OVR of 55 ish or above, sign them, they could very well have been your players. Even if you don’t want them, you can sell them for a million or so a year or two down the line.
thank you for the nice guide, i didn’t really think his OVR at a young age also was important.
But I just started my third season with AFC Wimbledon, since my best player is about 70 i think i can also offer 16 yrs old scouted players a contract, or do you think it isn’t a good idea in this case ? thanks
If you can afford the wages then I’d really recommend giving your youth players a contract (also make sure you can give them lots of playing time). They will likely have much higher potential than the players already on your time, so in all likelihood they will be your best chance to improve your squad. Even if their OVR is a little lower than some of your other players, make sure you play them as much as you can, as they should grow quickly and will soon become your best players.
Best of luck 🙂
ok thanks 😉
the best i have at the moment is a 17-year old from Ivory Coast who is 64 OVR and is predicted to become 84-90
Is 1/2 games enough ? I play 2 matches a week most of the time and i have 24 players
He sounds great. I would play him as much as you can because he has a very high potential and will probably become one of your best players. With that in mind, he needs as much game time as possible. Even if you start him most matches but have to sub him off after an hour, that’s more game time than playing him one game and dropping him the next. Plus, it’ll keep his form going, which will help him grow faster (good performances = good growth).
So I had a GK in my youth squad, had OVR 65-69 and Potential 83-89 (checked his actual overall at 68).
I was going to offer him a contract and move him to #1 GK, but he wanted a 4 year contract, which I know means he won’t sign for me no matter what I offer, and the only choice is to release him and sign him in the transfer window….the only problem was this was in February…if I released him, he wouldn’t be there by the summer transfer window….they just disappear if you release them and don’t sign them…..so I figured I’d try to keep him in my Youth Squad until the next transfer window….but for some reason any time I simmed from my save point I would get a message saying he had terminated his contract…the only thing is he never said he wanted out…so I could load my save as many times as I wanted….I couldn’t offer him a contract, he wouldn’t accept, I couldn’t release him, he’d disappear, and if I simmed a single day he’d terminate his contract and end up somewhere else.
Is there anything I could have done?…do the youth players you add to your Youth Squad only stay in for a max time?…is there an absolute last day they will remain in your YS, and on that last day will terminate their contract?
I guess the moral is if you have a super Youth player, to always offer a contract or release them if they won’t sign before the end of the January transfer window or else you won’t get to keep them.
Also, do any Youth players ever get designated CAM or CDM or are they always CM?…
I can look at the stats and make a pretty good determination without it, but it would be nice to see CAM or CDM for long term planning
-Blake
I think you can try this:
If a young persists in getting promoted, and no matters how many times you reload the game. why don’t you offer him a contract before he complains? Maybe then you can offer him 3 years and he signs.
another trick is: keep on offering them 3 years and they’ll refuse… keep on doing the offer all the season long until the transfer month when you can let him go and offer him a contract as a Free player.
right?
I don’t think there’s a last day as such, but I think if they’re 18 when a season ends and are still in the youth academy then they automatically terminate their contract. What I do is offer them a contract when they are 17 at the start of a new season. HOWEVER, I always create a backup save in May of the previous season (once I’ve played my last game), so if at the beginning of the next season they want a 4 year contract, I can go back to the end of the last season and offer them a new contract then (contract terms reset at the start of each new season). Hopefully that all makes sense 😛
Youth players are never CAM or CDM, they will always be CM. Similarly you can’t find CFs, only STs. No idea why, it’s annoying cos it means players often get mispositioned and thus have lower OVR than they should.
So I am playing for Real Madrid in the year 2020. But I have a major problem with the scouting. Every time I go to South American countries, or Spain, I get the normal amount of players, but they are all named Sergio Alvarez, different positions, stats etc… Is this just a glitch or has anybody else had the same problem?
Oh and I have also found some extremely talented players with your scouting guide. I have Davide Corsi-Striker-Italian-23 years old-85 overall. When I brought him up, at age 17, he was worth 23 million dollars, now up to about 50 million. Matthias Kaiser-Striker-21 years old-85 overall-Worth 55 million dollars. Diego Ortiz-GK-20 years old-84 overall- Worth 35 million dollars.
Thanks a lot for this guide, it is by far the best I have ever read!
Yes, I’ve heard a couple of other players mention this. I think maybe if you scout too long in one area the game glitches up and seems to run out of names. It’s really odd, but they are all different players, just all with the same name.
Thanks! And those players look incredible, are they still growing?
After i promote a player to the first team, he usually doesn’t have many chanches of playing the game… In a whole season i can make him play like 10/12 games…
Is it better to lend them to another clubs?
Loaning can be a bit hit and miss. I’ve had players grow 4 points a season whilst on loan, and others who have only grown 1 point. All of them went to clubs where they’d be in the starting 11. What I recommend doing is starting your young players as much as you can, then subbing them off after about an hour. That’s better than playing them a whole game then dropping them the next because they get more overall game time, plus their form will continue if it’s good.
If you really don’t have space for them then try loaning them and see how well they progress. Just make sure that when you get an offer you click stall, then check out the team making the offer in the transfer screen. If you loanee will be the best player in that position, accept the loan offer. If not, reject it and try again. Maybe create a backup save at the start of the transfer window to go back to if you receive no suitable offers; you’ll likely get some different offers 2nd time around.
Hey dude! Great guide! I read this at the office and I couldn’t wait to come back home and try this! Too bad I didn’t found about this sooner. 🙂
One question though, you said to save and reload when your scouts sends you report once every month. My problem is, my scouting reports always (or sometimes, I’m not sure) comes after my game! And I don’t even have time to save before it does the report on my mail. I play every game in my CM. So, how can I reload it again, if my last game was superb and I can’t and don’t want to replay that game just for the scouting report. Hope you understand. So, what do I do then?
Thanks dude! 😀
Dang, that’s a bit unlucky! The way the scouting works is that scouts report back on a certain date each month (e.g. the 10th), not a specific day of the week. So one month he may report back on a match day right after the game ends, but the next month he might report to you on a Monday when you don’t have a game. So unfortunately there will be times when you get a report coming back right after a match, but I wouldn’t worry too much – you only need one good reload to find a superstar, so just try again next month 🙂
And thanks for the praise, I appreciate it!
Yeah. And you’re right. One scouting report, my scout came before a game. In short, I found a 14 y/o 52-72 OVR 71-91 POT player from France. And I never looked back. 😀
Thanks again!
Can’t wait for FIFA 13!
Haha nice 😀 Yeah I’m really looking forward to it, it’ll be really interesting to see what they’ve done with the scouting system and manager mode in general.
thanks a lot for the help… (sorry for my english, i’m spanish)
I tell you, I’m having very good young players.. the best one is a beast: CB with 75 OVR 16 or 17 years old, don’t remember. He was worth 10,5 M€ and after few matches he got one OVR point up and now he’s worth 11,5M€… very nice 🙂
There are also some others but this guy is my best shot!
but I’ve got a little concern (I’m playing prepatch version) some of my young players are crap but they are worth 2M€, which is a good money for my team (Huesca)
I put them on transfer and I get offers which I accept, but the young players won’t accept.
I think there is a bug, because for example:
I open the transfer window and see that “Raulinho” is being offered a 2k€/week salary, and in that window it says that he is already earning 10k€/week which is false. All my young players earn 1k€/week (checked)
It’s very difficult to get rid of young crappy players. Any trick?
Wow that player is amazing! How is he developing now?
I have a similar problem. On pre patch it’s a glitch caused when you first offer a youth player a contract. You know how when you go to the contract screen it may say your player wants £8,000 a week, but you can successfully offer him £2,000? Well, that triggers the glitch. Even though the game says your player is on £2,000 a week, when it comes to transfers it thinks he’s on his originally-suggested wage of £8,000. Teams making offers will go on his in-game wage of £2,000, but the player himself rejects the offer because he thinks he’s on £8,000. It’s really frustrating, and the only way to beat it is to give your player what he first requests when you send him a contract offer. This issue was fixed with the November patch.
However, the November patch didn’t fully solve this glitch, because there are still times when you can’t sell players. I had to abandon one career because I just couldn’t sell anyone at all – I would click accept when I got an offer, but nothing would happen – I woudn’t get a message saying the talks had broken down, but they’d just end. I think it has something to do with how many players you’ve already sold/loaned that season. It seems you can’t go over a certain amount, but you’re never told what that amount is, so it’s very confusing
The only way to get rid of the players you don’t want is either to try releasing them (but the club board may stop you), or just waiting until the next transfer window (or the next season) and trying again.
Hopefully this will be fixed in FIFA 13 😦
hi, i wrote a post about “I cannot sell my young players”
did you erase it?
Sorry no I didn’t, but I have to approve every comment once it’s been posted (to filter out spam). Unfortunately I’ve been extremely busy at work recently, so I’ve only just been able to get to replying! But I’ve made a reply now 🙂
I’d like to thank you for this guide, it has helped me so much!!
After reading this, I only accepted the best to my youth academy so that I could save space. I recently promoted a OVR 66 LW, and my Youth Academy star is a OVR 64, POT 72-91 14-year-old. Just signed him today.
THANKS!!!!
No worries 🙂 looking great, how are those players developing now?
Well, the 14-year-old is no longer the star. Now it is a 67 14-year-old with POT 85-91:). All of my youth players are getting pretty strong, I expect to win each game 4 or 5 to 0 in 10 years.
Haha nice! Looks like you’ve got some real beauties in there! What team are you? Will you be able to give them much playing time once they’re promoted?
The biggest problem will be the new 14-year-old, he is a center back, and by defense is an average of 84-85. I should be able to work him in as a wing. The other players will be fine, because my entire offense is about to retire.:( There Goes Donovan.
I am playing as Wigan Athletic.
I guess really you have to be patient, work them in and play them lots, and they’ll grow. Luckily, seeing as you have so many other good players, they should ‘protect’ your young players and make up for their short comings. Eventually your scouted players will be incredible, so it’s well worth playing them as much as you can.
Well, my offense is back. I signed Neymar at 25, and I have a new star youth player, age 16, OVR 71 and POT 74 to 91
Oh nice, your squad must be amazing now. How are those youth players doing that you mentioned before? Did you manage to find space for that amazing-looking centre back?
hi there!!
I’ll tell you my youth squad, let me know who you think is gonna be the great!!
Name, position, age, OVR, Potential
Silberbauer, CB, 17, 71-77, 83-89 (this is already playing, 75 OVR, 13,5M€)
Horvath, ST, 17, 66-70, 82-88, (already playing, 65 OVR, 6.5M€)
Sculli, CF, 16, 61-64, 80-86 (already playing, 64 OVR, 4.8M€)
Terracino, …, 16, 61-65, 79-85
Fenin, CB, 16, 68-72, 79-82
Ladic, CB, 17, 70-74, 81-88
best regards 🙂
Silberbauer most definitely, he looks incredible. To be fair though I expect all of the rest will be brilliant, perhaps Horvath will be the best of the rest 🙂 Overall, great finds!
this Silberbauer is getting very good…
Sculli, the ST, is very bad and clumsy… I hope he gets better soon… but he only plays the last 20 minutes or so, when the match is already done (because as long as he is on the field, there is no longer goals…he even missed a shot without Goalkeeper)
Horvath is doing ok, he always plays … as Marcello in RealMadrid (i don’t know the english name for that position)
does it matter where they actually play?
Try being patient with Sculli, he’s got great potential so he will only improve.
Personally, I’m not sure whether it matters where you play them. I think as long as the position is similar to their default position then you shouldn’t have a problem. I have a RB whose stats suggest he’s really a mispositioned CB, so I play him in both positions and he’s growing really fast. As long as you don’t put a striker in defence then I think you should be OK 😛
How long does the GM last? People say 15 years yet others say they’re in 2028?
It’s 15 years. Maybe they meant 2018 instead. I’ve never got to the end (11 season in so far) so I can’t confirm, but from everyone I’ve spoken to it’s 15 years.
my best scouted player was ari papakostas from greece and is a striker rated 86 overall
he has clinical finisher, poacher, an long shot taker
worth: 55 milion $$
22 years old
long shots: 99
finishing:91
shot power:92
Nice! What are his other stats like? Quite often strikers are very unbalanced until later on in career mode – they might have incredible finishing, but poor pace and heading, for example. What is your player like? At 22 years old, it looks like he’s still got more growing to do as well 🙂 what was his potential range in the academy?
he has 84 sprint speed
77 stamia
and pretty much everything in the late 70s in physical stats
potenial 83-89
Awesome 🙂 sounds like you’ve found ‘the one’ 😛
I am about to start year 7 in CM with F. Torino. My players are:
GK Courtois 84
RB Darmian 75
CB Ogbonna 83
CB Miranda 76
LB Santon 83
RM Iturbe 79 (just purchased)
CM Giandonnato 83
CM Fernando 80
LM Shaqiri 84
ST Puggioni 70 (scouted, 18 yrs)
ST Piazon 77
Notable Reserves:
CB Di Simone 73 (scouted, 19 yrs)
CM Leitner 76
CM De Vitis 72
RM Verdi 73
RM Guitierrez 67 (scouted, 17 yrs)
I do not understand how some of my players have not reached their potential. I just sold Bruno Uvini and Adryan because they were growing too slow. Does anyone have any thoughts?
FYI: as far as I know this is post patch, but pre-winter update.
Post patch growth is (generally speaking) much more steady that pre-patch. I can personally recommend Lucas Piazon and Adryan – both reached their (pre winter update) potentials with me, and I had them every season right from the start (Adryan on loan at first, Piazon purchased in the first January window).
The easiest way to tell if your players are growing well or slowly is to do this – most players stop growing at around age 28, so subtract your players current age from 28. Then work out how many points off your player is from his potential. Then divide that number by the first number. So for example, if a player is 18 years old and is 21 points off his potential, then he should grow 2.1 points a season on average.
This is just a rough guide. I don’t mean that he will definitely grow 2 points a season, every season, without fail. What I mean is that you shouldn’t be surprised if that’s how much he grows. Some seasons he may grow 3 points, some seasons he may grow just 1, but in the end he should reach his potential.
To take another example – let’s say you have a player who is 25 years old and is still 11 points off his potential. 28 – 25 = 3. 11/3 = 3.67, so you can expect him to grow 3 or 4 points a season in order to reach his potential. I had this situation with El Shaarawy when I bought him, and in the end he only ended up 1 point short of his potential. The game tries to make players reach their potential if it can, provided they get enough game time and play well enough.
Hope this clears a few things up for you! 🙂
Thanks, I’ll see how the next season plays out. I hope the new website goes well!
Thanks, let me know how it goes 🙂
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Great post! It really helped me a lot through all the scouting business :). I’ve got a problem though…I did your save-reload method 3 times, but i can’t choose which save to go with! For my first one, the most notable player was a 14 year old with an overall of 46-66 and a potential of 68-91. For the second one, I had a 14 year old with an overall of 47-65, and a potential of 70-91, and a 14 year old with an overall of 40-56 and a potential of 63-89. And for the third save, I had a 16 year old with an overall of 52-72 and a potential of 74-91 and a 15 year old whose overall was 47-65 and potential was 71-91. I can’t really pick between my second and third saves :/. Can you help me out?
Well the first thing to do is find out the players’ OVR. Load up one of the saves, go to your youth academy, release the player(s) and then find them in the free agents (i.e. if they’re a German RM then search for that, as their name and age will have changed unless they were 16). Once you’ve done that let me know, because that can really affect which save you choose to go for.
This might have been covered by the guide but i don’t remember and cannot find through searching but how old is it until a scouted player automatically leaves the youth academy because of being too old to be in it?
I think it’s age 18. I always promote them when they’re 17 at the start of a new season. This way I get a nice balance of keeping them in the academy so they grow well, and avoiding them forcing their way out.
I don’t know if this was covered in the guide but the contract glitch occurred and I used the save and reload method to keep my player(s) from leaving and remain in my team until the next season. When the season started and I offered them a contract (during the preseason and transfer window) they (like 4 players) only wanted ONE YEAR :). So I guess if you save and reload til the next season start and offer a contract then, the contract length will go to one year.
It’s great isn’t it 😀 when a new season starts then players’ contract demands change, so if you can’t sign a player cos he wants a 4 year contract, just wait til the next season and you’ll probably have more luck.
Thx dude, really helped me out, just a week ago i had one from Brazil, Joao Calado, 14 years old, potential 72-91 and ovr 55-72, when he was 16 his ovr was 64-74.
Nice find 🙂 have you pinned down his OVR yet? It should be at least 68 (player OVRs are usually at least 4 points above the minimum number in the OVR range).
Anybody know what Type of player I should tell my scout to look for if i want him to find a Central Midfielder? I need a box to box midfielder that leans towards being more defensive like a CDM but has adequate passing so I can spring effective counter-attacks.
Is Eden Hazard is good too i almost buy him is him good i will buy it??
Yep he’s brilliant, very expensive though.
i sent scout to japan , korea republic , and argentina is that good?
Argentina will be the best if you don’t reload, I expect. However, if you reload then they will all be good – I found some real beauties when scouting in Japan, for example. So you should get some good players from all of them 🙂
Nice post man! I just found a 14 year old Miguel De Mesquites, 14 yo OVR 64-68 with a potential of 85-91. He’s a CB with the strengths: sliding tackle, sprint speed, marking. He’s also defensive minded! 161 cm and 66 kg. I am sure he’ll turn into a beauty!
He is now 15 with OVR 67-71 and POT 85-91. But he seems to have shrunk 1cm and gained 4kg! 😀
Haha how strange. Never seen that before. Looks like he’s growing really well too 😀
Wow, sounds brilliant for a 14 year old! Great find 🙂
umm sir i found some player at england his name is Clint Lewington ovr 49-55 but his potential is 81 – 91. He is 14 years old is he are good ??
i want to know who’s your name ^_^
where are you ?
im at Indonesia
nice to meet you thanks
im 11 years old and you ^_^
(sorry for asking too much)
He could be, but you have to make sure you play him as much as possible, that way he should grow pretty quickly. It’s up to you really – if you like seeing players grow well, then keep him. If not, then you could always reload and try again, you could find someone with better OVR and similar potential.
buying players is too expensive if he still young but if scouting is hard coz i found 14 years old pot 70-91 but in the next season is 73-86 its lower i have 16 years old but pot just 64-87 ovr 37-49 .
1.I promote them and go to my squad
2.And then il loan them
(maybe it work to rise up the ovr)
can i learn from you? thanks
How you rise up the ovr of youth squad?
Keep your players in your youth academy as long as possible (I leave them in there until they’re 17). As I said in the guide, you will find players with high potential and with OVR much higher than 37-49, so if I were you I wouldn’t bother with that player, I’d just reload and try again. It takes some patience, but you can find players with OVR 60+, who will be much easier to raise up to 80+ OVR.
Is there anyway to check whether or not you have the nov. patch? Also, is there any way to remove it, I have some player in the 64-69 overall range at 16 that will not sign because they want 4 years and i can only offer 3 i think.
Also, are you on 360 or PS3? I have both and would like to talk to yyou for a few minutes if possible waterish.
Does nationality matter because I’ve never gotten good players with my 4*5* portuguese scout whenever I sent him to portugal?
I think it does matter – not by a huge amount, but from what I’ve heard it does. I think the accuracy of the scout’s reports is improved.
um sir I foundf\ some player in denmark 16 old his ovr is 50-61 his POT 74-91 then he grow up to 17 his ovr is 55-66 and POT 81 – 88 he want to I promote him into my squad ,but my squad is full im at 4th season if i not promote him he get out of my youth squad .how should i do
1.Transfer window closed
2.I can’t release my player
What should i do ? Can’t you give me some solution please..
Which player are you referring to in point 2? If you can’t release your scouted player, then the only thing I can suggest is that you release a player you don’t want any more and then promote your player. If you mean you can’t release any players, then there’s not a lot you can do I’m afraid. If that’s the case, how come you can’t release any more players?
I release player 5 five and i cant release again
Ah, well in that case I think you’re stuck, as there’s no way of freeing up space in your academy. You’ll have to wait until the start of the next season until you can sell/release players. If your Danish player quits your academy then there is a small chance he will still be in the free agents at the start of the next season (it happened for me, but most of the time he will just disappear). I can only suggest you try reloading new season a few times to see if he stays in the free agents (i.e. save on the last week before the old season ends and you have to choose which club to manage, then try reloading it a few times).
thanks man i found CB at japan age 16 ovr 63-69 pot 83-89 when im promote him his ovr 67 i play him 6 times with Pique and 5 is cleansheet !! and i promote striker ovr 66 my Neymar and Hazard is tired then il play him with Lukaku 4 games win at all !! IT’S GREAT DUDE …T.H.A.N.K.S 😀
Haha no problem 🙂 players can indeed often surprise you with how well they play, I’m glad you’ve found some good ones.
Your right. But if your not scouting and on normal carrier mode
Buy:
Welbeck 76 and his growth in 2 years time will be: 85
Welliton 83 to 88
Ericksen 83 to 90
Santon. 74 or 75 to 83
Powell 56 to 80
Jones. 74 to 84
my squad is :GK=Rene Adler , Marc Andre Ter Stegen , and Sczezcny [i do know how to write it :D]
CB,LB,RB:Pique,Yamamoto,Hummels,Varane,Sergio Ramos,and many more young
CM,LM,RM/LW,RW: Goetze,Ganso,Ryo Miyaichi,EdenHazard,Ericksen and
many more
ST,CF,LW,RW/LM,RM:Neymar,Cristiano Ronaldo,Lionel Messi ,Eden Hazard, Ryo Miyaichi,MarioBallotelli and many more i play at Manchester City Budget at Amateur board first 245 and at 3 season 300++ it super BUDGET dude im telling you if you want good player and great budget is in Real Madrid if you play Amateur Board dificulty
owh yeah i almost forget i scout player ovr min 60-77 pot 69-91 it’s good man 15 year old at German
Nice, did you find out his OVR?
(not scouting just normal) You should all buy:
EL shraaway he’s 18 million and hes a 74 but if you keep him for 2 seasons
BBBOOOOOOMMM
He’s a: a:a:a:a:a:a:a:a:: 88
bullshit
If he’s playing pre-patch then it’s possible.
I SUPER FOUND A NEW PLAYER
14 YEAR OLD OVR 62-81 AT ARGENTINA RIGHT FOOT ACCEL 66-91 POT 76-93 WONDERFUL I AT 6 SEASON . MANY PEOPLE GETTING SUPER OLDER -_- LIKE TERRY, RIBERY ,VIDIC -_-
76-93 potential?! That’s crazy. What’s his OVR and his position? I think you’ve found the next Messi lol 😛
his ovr now at 17 when i promote him is 69 when i play him 6 time its 70!!! his position is RM LM , RW LW
With such high potential it wouldn’t surprise me if he grows fast. Good find.
Also how can he have four positions? Scouted players only have 1. Or do you mean that’s where you play him?
this help me alot.
yeah i agree
if found striker 16 old he wants out then i promote him , his ovr 66 is that good ??
Great little guide, thanks for sharing and I enjoy reading about everyone else’s youth academies!
Step forward Robin Mard of Sweden and Stephen Robertson of Scotland who on their 19th birthdays were celebrating an OVR of 74!! Mard is a classic CAM in the Zidane mould. He’s quite slow, but dribbling and ball control and passing already at 84 and he loves nothing more than playing in ‘the hole’ behind the strikers and is starting to score a lot of match winning goals too! Although he is listed as a RW he plays like a true CAM. Meanwhile Robertson is speedy (85) and shaping up nicely.
Other notable mentions to Liam Barrowman of Scotland, a centre back with an OVR of 73 at 19 years old and both tackling and marking nearly at 85 so he is going to be very decent indeed. He’s only got speed of about 60 but hopefully given time this will improve dramatically. Meanwhile Daniele Olivi is a classic holding midfielder in the Sergio Busquets mould with an OVR of 68 aged 18 and Sylvio Destro a striker is 17 with OVR of 67. Let’s just say he will soon be “Destro”ing keepers wherever he goes! Many of these players were worth £8million when they joined at 16 years old but the rest of my new kids on the block tend to come in between £1.8 – £4.2m.
The scouting is a great addition to the game and makes it worthwhile for me but it has annoying flaws that really need to be improved. Like why do I want a right back who is nearly 2 metres tall and very slow? Also why are the majority of the players very short and well built? The game engine in FIFA 13 I hope will be much improved and we will start to see players coming through the academy who are very quick and ideally have skill moves or the ability to upgrade these somehow! Lots of annoying niggles with the system due to EA being lazy so I really hope these are all sorted out as it has the capability of being brilliant they just need more attention to detail with it.
I would be very interested to continue reading about people’s academies and also how the players have developed after say 10 years! Tell us about your best players and keep the stories coming please!
Cheers!
Nice players! Don’t worry about the CB’s pace, my scouted CBs seem to become pretty quick (70-80 sprint speed, although their acceleration is often quite low).
I know exactly what you mean about the scouting system. To me it feels a little bit like the impact engine – a great idea that probably wasn’t quite finished. It is very annoying when you find full backs who are clearly mispositioned CBs – it’s actually really difficult to find an actual full back who isn’t just a CB or winger given the wrong position! I’ve also found lots of players who seem like they should be short and fat (e.g. my RB who is 5’9″ and 192lbs…), although they never actually look out of proportion, which makes it even weirder. Speaking of lack of proportion, I have 2 Japanese defenders on one CM. One looks pretty skinny, whilst the other is built like a tank. However, the skinny one has strength 85 and the tank has strength 76! Just doesn’t make sense.
Have a look here: http://forum.ea.com/uk/posts/list/2880/1052115.page – it’s the scouting topic on the EA forums. I post there (under Waterish) and lots of people put up photos of their youth academies. In case you’re interested, I posted my youth players (in 12th season so far) on this page: http://forum.ea.com/uk/posts/list/2775/1052115.page#18291968
Yep that’s really good, promote him and give him plenty of game time and he’ll become a beast 🙂
tried alot of this, but i still have to spend hours finding a scout thats decent. then reloading a dozen or so times each time new players come out to find one thats good enough. all together this site didnt work for me at all.
That’s a shame, but fair enough. It does often require patience, as there’s no real way to guarantee perfect results every time. You might get an amazing player on your very first try, or you may have to wait a while. All I can guarantee is that these methods give you a much better chance of finding good players than not using them at all. But thanks for your input anyway.
Hey Waterish first I want to thank you for an amazing blog. Truly great work!
I have a quick question, I’m doing the save reload thing to get my youth players overall after releasing them from my academy and I can’t find them in the Free Agent group. Am I doing something wrong?
This is my player
Costa from brazil OVRL 63-68, POT 84-90. He’s 16 and a LW. When released I check the Free agents and nothing. Not even under different name, just no players from brazil at all.
Thanks, I really appreciate it! 🙂
That’s really strange. Did you make sure to check immediately after releasing him? I’ve always noticed that 16 year olds appear there. If you release a 14 year old, for example, he’ll appear in the free agents but will have become 16 and will have a different name (his stats will be the same – check them against his top 3 stats when he was in the academy).
Noticed that only 17+yo players from the academy appear as free agents once released
I only get players that look like there going to be awesome. So far the only people I have signed for my liverpool career are a argentine 16yr old 74ovr central midfielder and a 16yr old 78ovr winger from brazil (yes I had a fit when I found him) who had 87 dribbling 4* skill moves and 4* weak foot and 82 ball control, 81 acceleration, 83 sprint speed and 86 balance. The only thing making me continue this career.
Haha I think you have found “the one”. Are you playing pre-patch or post-patch? Either way both of those will be incredible, great finds 🙂
Does it matter if you sim the games or play them because i play them but my 16 year old who is 64 OVR isn’t getting any better.
I don’t think it matters much. I’ve compared ratings after simming and after playing and they’re usually pretty similar. Working out what’s going on with growth is difficult – game time and match rating seem to be the most important things, but sometimes players just stop/start growing for no reason. I had a player (Adryan, from Flamengo) who was growing 4 points a season, then one season he just grew 1 point, then it was back to 4 points again the next season. Don’t worry too much, keep trying with this guy. If you can’t give him much game time try loaning him out to a team that will definitely play him (click stall and check them out in the transfer screen) or better yet, sell him to a team and let them develop him for a few seasons, then buy him back.
Hope this is useful 🙂
I was scouting in popular countries like Argentina and Brazil etc, Never found a really potential world class player. Then i deccided to try and scout in china because i have never before. Can’t remember his stats when scout saw him but like 3 months in my youth he is 14 yr old, OVR 59-77 and potential:75-91. Really happy 🙂
Oh yeah he’s a CB
Just checked his OVR 65 and by the way didn’t even use the save reload process.
Wow great find! And without even reloading? You just saved yourself a lot of effort 😛 I scouted China before and found an amazing winger, came out of the academy with something like 91 sprint speed!
I would like to ask if the winter update and november update are same or not because youth players barely grow and if they are how do u delete it .Thnx
They’re not, here’s the difference:
Winter roster update – this is just a squad file that EA released that covered all the winter transfer activity. Player OVRs and potentials were also tweaked, and some new players were introduced (if they were promoted from a team’s youth academy in real life, for example).
November patch – this was a game update released in November that fixed a whole raft of bugs in the game. Unfortunately, it created the 4-year contract bug, where youth players sometimes ask for 4-year contracts but can only be offered a maximum of 3 years, leading to them being released and then disappearing from the free agents list. It also significantly slowed player growth. Before the patch players would peak around age 22-24. After the patch they peak around age 27-29. It’s much more realistic, but you have to be much more patient. Are you playing on Xbox 360? If so, this is how you delete it: link (look for the post by jblack007 about halfway down the page). If you’re on PS3 or PC you can delete it, but I’m not 100% sure as I use Xbox. You may have to look it up on the internet if you don’t use Xbox just to be sure.
Hope this clarifies things for you 🙂
i found many of great player in russia. they usally have potential from 79-91. 14 years old and when i promoted them to 1st team, some of them will -be one in the future- like you see during the carrer mode. They actually really good
Thanks for the tip 🙂 I scouted Russia lots in FIFA 12 as well and found some awesome players.
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Thank you for your guide, thanks to it I have found the most amazing player ever (in my career of course), and other amazing players to play alongside him. He is a Canadian CB. I share my foundings:
Doneil Stinson, Canada, CB, 16YO, 76 OVR, 85-91POT. After 1 season: 17YO, 80OVR, tackling specialty (91 marking, 88 Standing tackle, and 87 sliding tackle).
Manuel Vittielo, Italy, ST, 16YO, 70OVR, 84-90POT. After 1 season: 17YO, 74OVR, distance shooter specialty (92 long shots, 90 shot power).
Chee Zhang, China, ST, 16YO, 73OVR, 82-88POT. After 1 season: 17YO, 76OVR.
Pablo Vazquez, Spain, GK, 16YO, 70OVR, 83-89POT: After 2/3 season: 17YO, 73OVR.
Juan Pablo, Chile, CB, 16YO, 72OVR, 81-87POT. After 1/3 season: 16YO, 74OVR.
The only thing that worries me is that all of them have small height (Stinson is 177cm, small for a CB, Vittielo is 167cm, Zhang is 172cm, Vazquez is 175cm FOR A GK, and Juan Pablo is 175cm). Do you know if they grow in height? It worries me because sometimes they cannot win the headers (my ST’s never win a header, and my CB’s have problems and have give some stupid goals to other teams because of it).
Regarding Sergio Vega (the LW from other comment), I sold him to Newcastle with 73OVR for $15 million euro. He is still developing and now he is 19YO and 76 OVR. But since I found Zhang and Vittielo (Zhang has the same OVR and is 2 years younger and Vittielo is only 2 points below and 2 years younger too, I rather play with them than with Vega).
So, thank you, your guide is awesome.
I want to start a career with the Plymouth Argyle of the npower league 2 and scout 22 players for the main team and second team, and grow them in order to help me reach the Premier league.
Some amazing finds there 😀 Stinson especially is going to become incredible.
Unfortunately once a player gets to age 16 he won’t grow any more, so that’s as tall as they’ll get
Good idea with Plymouth, what tea are you using at the moment?
Wow Nice guide… I just signed players with High potential…never thought of OVR before 😀 i plat with Real madrid and have played for around 2 seasons. I play with 4 attackers (2 wings, 2 attackers) and it works pretty good…i searched for good players from the start and i Got a few. I ussually play with 2-3 at a time togethers with my first team…this works great and i stille win 😀 super Nice guide
Thanks very much, glad it’s helped you out 😀
ive also got a problem with goalkeepers my Player i created is a goalkeeper with potential of like 93. so i scout england and scotland for any players. my english division 4 team swindon town FTW! in the first season i find. a 80-86 potential keeper from england a 81-87 keeper from scotland, a 82-88 keeper from scotland and a 85-91 keeper from scotland. Scotland havent had a good keeper in AGES and i found 3 in 6 months LOL! im going to have to sell these guys keeping myself 😀 might make a motza.
Haha that’s pretty crazy. How will you find time to play them all? 😛
maybe i could put my goalkeepers at striker just for a laugh 😀
Ha 😛 did you sell any in the end? And how have the one(s) you kept been doing?
This is a weird glitch I’m experiencing. I select a scout, then select the type of player I want to scout (ex. playmaker), then select the no. of months, then select the country (ex. Spain), then press Enter to send the scout. And then in the next screen I see that the scout has gone to a completely different country. (in the same region). Its usually Croatia when I try to send him to Spain.
That’s really weird, I’ve never heard of that before. Have you tried posting in the EA FIFA 13 forums to see if anyone can help you there?
Okay I found the solution. Tried it a bunch of times and got the pattern. Its sending the scout to the country whose name on the list is before the country I selected for the scout to go. For example, South American list is – Argentina-Bolivia-Brazil-Chile. So if I chose Bolivia, itll go to Argentina, if I select Chile, it’ll go to Brazil! WEIRD, really! Thanks, anyways!
That’s odd. Have you tried starting a new career to see if it still happens then? At least you managed to figure out a pattern so you should still be able to get the scout to go where you want him to 😛
I sent my scout to china and got a 61-75 OVR and potential of 76-92. And I was in my 6th with arsenal. I managed to always win the league and champions!🇬🇧
OOPS it’s 65-75 OVR
Wow that’s mad, great find. How old was he? Have you promoted him yet?
That’s a lie my greatest was 60-70 at Mexico
this happens with pretty much every franchise, when i scout anywhere for say a playmaker or attacking minded player or technically gifted. i still get about 1 in 5 as goalkeepers. which is about the same if i selected any positions. its very frustrating since you only need one Goalkeeper and the rest are just wasted. its not like your going to sub another one in after 50-60 minutes each game lol. is anyone else getting that or just me? i would love to see an attacking minded goalkeeper. or a playmaking keeper in real life LOL. maybe one that can dribble very very well.
Is this for FIFA 12 or FIFA 13? I had this problem in FIFA 12 but haven’t seemed to have experienced it at all in FIFA 13. In fact I’ve never once found a good GK from searching ‘any’, so I seem to be the opposite of you 😛
found my first ever messi yes along time coming. season one with a new franchise. overall 64-76 potential 78-91 and hes 14!!!!!!!! brazilian striker. 14 year old with at least 64 rating o..m…g
Haha he sounds amazing. How is he doing now?
hi everybody!
I´m on my third year on Inter and I use the Youth Academy a lot in my career mode.
The best player I´ve found so far is an italian CDM 72 OVR just when he was promoted on the second year, and now he is 76 and 17 years old, 86 standing tackle and 84 sliding tackle, and he´s not bad on the ball nor slow at all! he´s quite awesome in the gameplay because he is 6´7 tall (200cm) and he is soooo strong!
I also wanted to ask if other teams on the career mode also created o generated youth players on their academies. Because I know about cpu randomly generated players but they start at 18…but I think they´re different because they are created because older players retire, and not because the team promotes them from their youth academy.
correct me if I´m wrong!
Sounds awesome, he’s going to be a super star 🙂
They do, I’ve seen 16 year olds and 17 year olds on other teams (16 year olds are rare, but 17 year olds are fairly common. CPU teams do scout their own players as well but there are plenty of regens as well on their teams.
Hey Waterish/Alex Blake, can u help me something? 😀
Sure, what’s the problem?
Sorry for the late response by the way!
I have player in my youth academy, Kalidou Courtois(France) OVR 43-59 POT 65-91
Is he can be good player?
Depends how old he is and what team you’re managing. If he’s 14, he might develop to around 49-55 by the time he’s 16 (and maybe between 72-84 overall). This is good if you’re managing a smaller team, but if you want a world class player, don’t bother with him!
However, if he’s already 16, it’s unlikely he’ll develop beyond the low 70’s.
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