“Sometimes you have to let young people develop”: Thomas Tuchel
Welcome back soccermanagerites! This is the final installment of the navigation series and today we finish with an undoubtedly important piece of the puzzle in your quest of becoming the best Soccer Manager that you can be.
The scout page is where you can obtain an analysis of your team, the opposition, and individual players based on information received via your Scouts and Assistant Manager. In order to get these different analysis, SM coins are used to purchase each. You can either obtain the coins within the store section or purchase a gold membership and, depending on the type of membership you’ve purchased, you’ll gain access to these different analysis plus much more. If you’ve been reading these blogs from since day one (A massive shout out if you have) you must be thinking that I’m being paid by soccermanager to promote these different purchasable features, but I can guarantee you that’s not the case. I’m just a super fan trying to increase the popularity of this game and I know from experience that you’ll enjoy it more once you’ve become a gold manager. Now, with that intro out of the way, let’s get to the scouting report going, shall we?
SCOUTH YOUTH PLAYERS
On the scout page,(there are 6 different reports available to you to check out based on your current playing squad, potential new players, and young upcoming stars. The first one is the Scout Youth Player report. This report will give you 3 different young players whom your scout and Assistant Manager will both give you their opinion on whether they believe you should consider signing the player or not.
SCOUT OPPOSITION
The next report is a scouting report of your upcoming match. This report shows what your scout believes the starting line will be up and the formation that your opposition may use. It is particualrly effective when you do not have time to do your own research via checking their last 5 games to see how they’ve been playing. A crucial point to note is that a lot of matches are won within this game by the team with a better tactical approach. Your tactical approach consists of both your style of play and formation. Formations are extremely important in soccermanager. In most instances, they are the primary reason behind victory or defeat. Don’t get me wrong, having superior players is also important, but this game is primarily focused on formation vs formation rather than player vs player.
This is an example of a scouting report that was given to me for my Borrussia Dortmund team. In this report, we will be playing against Leeds Utd in the SMFA champions cup and my scout believes Leeds will play a 4-2-3-1 B formation. To demonstrate my point on why this game is more focused on formation vs formation, here is my starting X1 for this match:
I’ve decided to set us up in a 4-3-1-2 formation. Looking at both X1’s, mine is the most superior in every position but that dosent pose as much of a threat as you’d think. Leeds’ formation means that, during extended periods of posession, they will have an overload on the wings, effectively isolating James and Saka against Rafinha and Harrison. Because of my narrow formation, their full backs can provide support to their wingers easily. What will happen during Leeds’ possesion is that Wijnaldum and Eriksen (2 of my 3 Central midfielders) will provide defensive support to James and Saka but the problem with that is they are also responisble for providing my attackers during the transition (when we win the ball back). Having to do both of these tasks for 90 minutes will be too daunting. Something has to give, and I could use a 4-3-3 formation with Greizemann and Rashford playing as wide forwards to track Leeds’ full backs but I refuse to do that. I refuse to not play to the strengths of my best players. There’s also a nice prospect here: Leeds are only playing with 2 recognized Central Midfielders. We’re effectively playing with 5 if you consier the ability of Antoine and Harry to drop in between the lines as well as provding a passing option to feet by dropping deep and, to make matters worse for Leeds, we have Marcus playing as a finisher (staying on the Center Back’s shoulder). Because of the central overload, one of the Leeds Center Backs will want to break their defensive line and help his Central midfilders but Marcus’ positioning and movement means that he’ll be in behind if they try to do so, thus leaving Kloch and Phillips with the conumdrum of being effectively 5V2 down in, my opinion, the most importsnt part on the field. With all that being said, it’s still a risk to use the 4-3-1-2 formation against their 4-2-3-1B because width allows you to stretch your opponents and when you have trickly wingers like what Leeds do you’ll have to hope and pray they do not cause too much concern to your defenders. Nevertheless, I am a big believer in dominating the battle in the midfield and refuse to stray from my principles. I still believe that Leed’s formation makes them superior in this match and us having superior players means that this match may end in a draw. It’s also a SMFA match and I’ve already explained in Blog post episode 6: Soccermanager worlds navigation: Gameworld page, these matches are the most challenging.
ANALYSE YOUR SQUAD
If you’ve just found a new team and are wondering who are the best players to keep and the ones you should sell then here’s the best place to do it. This option allows you to take a look at who your assistant manager believes you should keep at the club, who you should get rid of and who are the best youth players at the club. Now this analysis has no effect on how the players will perform and you do not have to follow your assitant’s advice in keeping or selling any of them. Just consider this as a guideline. Plus, your assistant manager has to get something to do right?
According to my assistant manager, it is recommended that I sell both De Gea and Eriksen. I had to call him into my office for a one on one away from the other staff so I could sit him down to have a private word: “ARE YOU F$%&ING MAD?!! Cristian has been nothing short of fantastic for us since he was signed. He has a whopping 60 goal involvements ( 21 goals and 39 assists) in only 54 appearences in the league alone. Last season, he had 17 goal involvements in the SMFA cup. He’s the reason why we’re defending champions in that competition. If I was able to also tally his contributions from the domestic cups from the last 2 seasons his stats will look even crazier. And don’t even get me started on David. If it wasn’t for his heroics in the World championship cup quarter finals against Man Utd we wouldn’t have progressed to the semis and eventually win that damn competition. Both of these have been nothing short of sensational and you want me to sell them? You must be taking the bluudy piss!”
Just to let y’all know, I’m not Brittish but if I had the chance to choose where I was born I’d love to have been born in England. I just love their bluudy accent.👌
SCOUT PLAYERS
Nothing much to see here folks as this is simply a shortcut to the player search page……
SCOUT FIRST TEAM PLAYERS
So your comtemplating new players to bring in that can be a breath of fresh air as well as give certain players within your squad competition for places but you don’t want to make that search manually. Never fear, your scouting team is here! This option allows you to search for 3 random players whom your scout believes will be a good addittion to your squad. Now, since I’ve been playing this game I’ve rarely been reccommeded players who are of any interest to me honestly. I get it, there’s a gazillion number of users playing this game and it’ll probably take an eternity for these scout reports to make sense for every manager but there should be a method to have these scouts reccommending players based on the playing style of the team . I mean, c’mon? Why am I being reccommended Joao Felix when my team plays a long ball passing style??? Short rant aside, let’s see who I get reccommended this time around shall we….
😶
Uhhhh….. Guess I was wrong about this one….. Since when did my scouts get some actual common sense? I’d most definitely sign both of these players, especially Marcos LLorente. He’d be perfect as my box to box midfielder. As for Chiesa, he’d work as well but Llorente is as close to perfect for my strengths of play! I’ll take that L, soccermanager. I tip my hat to you for the improvement! 🧢 👏
SCOUT SQUAD PLAYERS
Okay, so that last report’s got me excited for whats coming next! I expect to see the same trend of quality so fingers cross my scouts truly understand the difference between a first team player and a squad player. Can you read the excitement though my words? Alrighty, let’s go! Tehehehe…. 3…..2…..1
WOW, I’M IN SHOCK…..🙀😃
FODEN IS ON MY SHORTLIST!!! WTF?!
Wow….. I’m actually lost for words as it has truly been a while since I’ve used the scouting options. They’ve got this one absoulutely spot on. The system that I play would be perfect for Phil and he also represents a squad player down to the tee. THIS IS INCREDIBLE! The kind of thing that makes me proud that I am a super fan of this game.
There you have it folks. If you ever wanted any reason to become a gold manager you’ve just seen it with your own eyes. Cannot recommend it any more than I have honnestly. And with that, we end the navigation series! 🥳🥳🥳 It’s been a real pleasure writing these blog posts as they have re-energized my love for this game even further. But the fun dosent end here folks. We’re just getting started! The upcoming blogs will be a new adventure as we’ll be taking an indepth look on….. you guessed it….. the tactics page! Time to sepearate the men from the boys and dive into every tactical aspect of this game. Trust me when I say you do not want to miss it!
The Soccermanager Experience 