Scouting Assignments

Scouting assignments determine how your scouting team is utilised to provide you information on different players and teams.

To use your scouts most effectively you should take the time to set up scouting assignments yourself. To do this you will first need to make sure that you have not assigned this responsibility to either your chief scout or director of football on the Responsibilities tab of the Staff screen.

Scouting Range

Your scouting range is set by your club’s board and determines the areas of the world that you are allowed to send scouts to. Depending on the stature of your club you may be restricted to scouting in your club’s nation, region or continent, or you may be allowed to scout globally.

You can view your current scouting range on the Overview tab of the Board screen or on the left-hand panel of the Scouting screen.

You can ask the board to increase the scouting range from the Board Overview screen by using the Make Board Request button and choosing Scouting Range from the Networking category. However, the board may reject your request if you have not yet increased the stature of your club.

Managing Scouting Assignments

On the Assignments tab of the Scouting screen you can create new scouting assignments and view details of existing assignments. You can also change the priority of existing assignments.

The Reports column shows the number of players that have been reported on in each assignment. You can view the players reported on in an assignment by clicking this number. This will take you to the relevant scout’s Reports screen where you can use different conditions to filter the players as you desire, while you can also use the filter by assignment drop-down to view players the scout has reported on outside this assignment.

You can request an update on the players a scout has found on his current assignment by viewing or right-clicking the scout and then selecting Get Update On Scouting Assignments.

Types of Scouting Assignment

You can send a scout on a player assignment or a team assignment by clicking the Create New Assignment button.

Player Assignments

A player assignment requires a scout to find and report on players that meet your specified conditions.

Scout reports on players are discussed in the Scout Reports guide.

There are several different player assignment templates that you can select from. Each template specifies a different set of default conditions to be applied by the scout undertaking the assignment. The player assignment templates are:

• First Team Player, Backup Player and Hot Prospect – These templates can be used to search for players who could have sufficient quality to be of use to your senior squad, either now (in the case of the first team player and backup player templates) or after further development (in the case of the hot prospect template). As such, the template that you choose determines the minimum current ability and minimum potential ability specified in the default conditions. You can refine the template if you wish by specifying a position and role. The position and role that you choose, if any, are also specified in the default conditions, while the role that you choose, if any, determines the desirable attributes that are specified in the default conditions.

• Replacement For – This template can be used to search for players who could potentially become at least as good as a particular player in your squad could potentially become, and therefore could potentially replace that player. You must specify a position and then a player in your squad who can play in that position. Your choice of player determines the desirable attributes and the minimum potential ability that are specified in the default conditions. The desirable attributes specified are based on the player’s best attributes and the minimum potential ability specified is equal to the player’s potential ability.

• Report From a Competition, Nation or Region – These templates can be used to search for players in a geographical area or a competition, and to build up scouting knowledge levels for the nations scouted. You must choose the competition, nation or region and this determines the scope that is specified in the default conditions.

After choosing a player assignment template to specify appropriate default conditions you can then modify the conditions of the assignment as you desire. The conditions include:

• Transfer Type – The type of transfer, either full transfer, loan or end of contract agreement, that the scout believes could be used to sign a player.

• Transfer Budget – The maximum transfer fee that a player should be available for as assessed by the scout. This can help you to split your transfer budget between players and to avoid overspending on a single player.

• Age – The age range that a player should currently be in. This can allow you to search specifically for young players who can be developed at your club or for older players who can add experience to your team or be used for tutoring.

• Minimum Current Ability – The minimum current ability star rating (including black stars) that a player should have as assessed by the scout. This can help you to find players who could immediately contribute to your squad (or to another team on loan), whether as a first team player, rotational player or backup player depending on their current ability compared to that of players in the same position already in your squad.

• Minimum Potential Ability – The minimum potential ability star rating (including black stars) that a player should have as assessed by the scout. This can help you to find hot prospects who could possibly be developed to reach a certain ability level. Combining a minimum potential ability with a lower minimum current ability can help you to find players who can perhaps be signed at a cheaper price than those who have already reached the specified minimum potential ability.

• Desirable Attributes – The particular attributes that a player should ideally have relatively good ratings in. You can set minimum required ratings for particular attributes by clicking the Specify Attribute Values button after selecting desirable attributes.

• Additional Conditions – These include the position and role that a player can play or partially play, among other conditions. Specifying a position can help you to find players for a position where you need an extra man as either a first team player, rotational player, backup player or hot prospect in order to build a balanced squad. Specifying a role can help you to find players who would suit your tactical requirements in a position.

• Scope – The competition, nation or region that a player should be based in. If you select a region then the scout will choose a nation to scout within that region. Alternatively, you can set the scope to Scouting Range to allow the scout to choose a nation within your club’s scouting range. Therefore, to gain control over the specific nations that the scout goes to (and therefore the nations for which scouting knowledge levels are built up) you must select a nation (or a competition in a nation).

• Scout – The scout who will undertake the assignment. You can choose a scout yourself or ask your chief scout to choose. If you want the scout to find players with a specified minimum current ability who can immediately contribute to your squad then it is advisable to use a scout with good Judging Player Ability. If you want the scout to find young players with a specified minimum potential ability who you can develop then it is advisable to use a scout with good Judging Player Potential. If you are sending a scout to a nation or region then it is advisable to use a scout who already has good knowledge of the nation or of nations in the region if possible so that he can undertake the assignment more efficiently, as explained in the Scouting Knowledge guide. Otherwise, the scout should ideally have good Adaptability.

Further advice on how to assign your scouts is provided below.

• Duration – How long the scout should continue the assignment for. Until Finished means that the scout will end his assignment when he has finished looking for players in the chosen nation or competition and will then start any other assignment that you have set up for him. Ongoing means that the scout will continue on his assignment even after he has finished looking for players and will not start any other assignments that you have set up for him until you manually end the assignment. If the scope is set to region or scouting range then ongoing means that the scout will roam from one nation to another each time he has finished looking for players in a nation. If you want a scout to stay in one nation and continue to look for players there then you should set the scope to a particular competition in that nation and set the duration to ongoing.

The time it takes a scout to finish looking for players in a nation depends on his knowledge level for the nation, as explained in the Scouting Knowledge guide.

• Priority – Whether the assignment is normal or very urgent. A very urgent priority instructs the scout to find and report on players more quickly. However, he will find less players as a result.

Regardless of the conditions you set, you will be able to filter the players a scout has reported on during his assignment on his Reports screen if you want to search for specific types of player. Therefore, you may not want to restrict an assignment too much by setting conditions that are too specific. For example, by not using the role condition you can allow your scout to find and report on more players and then use your own judgement as to whether a player would be suitable for a particular role.

Team Assignments

A team assignment (report on a team) requires a scout to provide a team report rather than reports on individual players. A team report includes a variety of information, including statistical information and a squad depth report, that can help you to identify a team’s strengths and weaknesses.

You will receive a summary of a requested team report in your inbox and can then view the full report by clicking Team Report. This takes you to the club’s Team Report screen where you can navigate the different sections of the report from the Team Report drop-down.

The scout with the highest Tactical Knowledge attribute will undertake team assignments. It is advisable to avoid giving this scout other assignments if possible so that he does not have to travel between assignments frequently.

You can select from the following two types of team assignment:

• Ongoing reports on next opposition – The scout will provide you with a team report on the next opposition team a few days before each match. He will also advise you on an appropriate match preparation training focus to use before each match. It is advisable to ensure that you have this assignment activated before the start of a season so that you will receive team reports for each competitive match.

Using a team report on your next opposition to plan your tactical approach for the match is discussed in the Tactical Planning guide.

• Report on specific team – The scout will provide you with a team report on a team of your choice. You can use this assignment to assess rival teams or to get scout reports on multiple players who are at the same club.

How to Assign Your Scouts

Although you are free to decide how to assign your scouts, a recommended approach is to:

• Allow one scout to concentrate on scouting your next opposition, as explained above.

• Leave at least one scout with very good Judging Player Ability and Judging Player Potential free to scout specific players, as explained below.

• Ensure that a selection of scouts are generally placed on assignments scouting different nations. It is advisable to scout specified nations rather than regions so that you can choose the nations that the scouts go to. You can instruct a scout to go to multiple specific nations by creating a different assignment for each nation and setting the duration of each assignment to until finished. As explained in the Scouting Knowledge guide, it is advisable to focus mainly on nations that are more important for your club and to ensure that the knowledge of each scout remains manageable. You can achieve this by instructing each scout to concentrate on building and maintaining knowledge levels for a separate, manageable selection of nations. Eventually, this will result in scouts being assigned to nations that they have high knowledge levels for, therefore increasing the efficiency of your scouting. Generally, it is best to assign each scout to nations within a particular region, with the focus being on scouting more important nations in each region. Once a scout has built up a 100% knowledge level for all of the more important nations in a region then you may want to allow him to roam the region so that he can maintain these knowledge levels and also build knowledge levels in less important nations within the region automatically. You can do this by setting the scope of the assignment to the region and the duration to ongoing. If you have, or are able to sign, scouts who already have good knowledge levels for nations in particular regions then this will help to speed up this process.

• Any further scouts can be used to find specific types of players, such as players for your senior squad or hot prospects, or to scout competitions. In particular, you may want to scout the competitions that your club plays in so as to increase knowledge levels for the players in the opposition teams, therefore making tactical planning and setting opposition instructions easier, while you may also want to scout youth competitions for hot prospects.

Scouting Specific Players

You can also ask any of your scouts, or any of your coaches, to scout a specific player. This may be a player who you have identified yourself, or it may be a player who a scout has already reported on and you want an updated report, a more detailed report or simply a report from a scout with higher ability.

You should do this whenever you have highlighted a player who you may be interested in signing. If you are still interested in the player following an initial scout report then it is advisable to increase your player knowledge level, as explained in the Scouting Knowledge guide, by using a scout with very good Judging Player Ability and Judging Player Potential to scout the player for a period of time or a number of matches. This will enable you to gain as accurate a report as possible before deciding whether to try to sign the player.

You should only send a scout to watch a player in matches if his team plays in a competition that is loaded in your game.

To scout a player select Assign Scout from his Reports drop-down and then select your desired scout. Alternatively, you can choose to add the player to your scouting pool to be scouted whenever a member of your scouting team becomes available. You can view and edit the list of players on your scouting pool on the Queue tab of the Scouting screen.