Football Manager Scouting Regions & Nations Youth Rating

Rating the Quality of Nations Newgen Production Within the Scouting Regions

Discover which nations and regions with a higher probability of generating quality ‘newgens’ and become more purposeful with scouting in Football Manager.

Take scouting for newgens to the next level, as we arrange the valuable nations to scout!

Using the Football Manager Scouting Regions To Decide Your Order of Nations to Scout

Throughout the last scouting guides I’ve released, I’ve preached the importance of being strategic and methodical in your search for players. I’ve talked about how you should set up scouting assignments, why increasing scouting knowledge is beneficial and how you can find hidden gems and future wonderkids by tracing down quality newgens generated at youth intakes.

Today I want to put attention to the different Football Manager scouting regions and how you can sort the world regions into areas that are necessary to gain higher scouting knowledge of, and areas that are less valuable in your search for future world-class players.

In fact, the list of scouting regions can be a valuable tool when trying to decide which nations or regions in Football Manager to scout. It helps you to prioritize certain countries and world regions when setting up scouting assignments as you’ll get a better picture of where it’s most useful to scout!

By including each nations’ youth ratings and game importance to the different scouting regions in Football Manager you’ll be given a more structured approach to scouting since they affect the production of newgens at youth intakes, and their quality.

As a result, it increases the chance you’ll be able to find more quality newgens generated in your save, in nations higher up the list with a better youth rating and game importance than in a lower one.

Do you want to understand which nations to scout to find future wonderkids of the highest quality? Then, our list of the Football Manager scouting regions and their nations will come in handy!

How the Nations’ Youth Rating may affect Youth Intakes?

The youth rating is a static number within the Football Manager editor which ranges from 0 to 200. The score affects how likely a specific nation can produce an average amount of quality newgens. By that I mean; Juniors with a potential ability to become world-class players, their reputation and their average levels of current abilities coming through in the nation as a whole. Basically, a nation with a higher youth rating will see a larger pool of Juniors being generated with more players of greater standards.

In other words, the youth rating determines the maximum quality of Juniors produced within a nation, along with the overall quantity.

A nation with better youth rating will over time produce newgens of a higher standard than a nation with a lower level. For instance, it’s a much bigger chance of finding quality newgens in Brazil compared to the Caymen Islands. Not only because of the cultural differences but also how many plays football in that country compared to the total population, which is replicated in Football Manager as the game importance.

You can then use this knowledge of where it is most likely that the best juniors will be produced to set up more focused scouting assignments. In fact, you increase your probability of finding better newgens by scouting nations with excellent youth ratings compared to spending resources and time in nations with poor youth ratings.

This list helps you to be more strategic when setting up scouting assignments and assigning scouts to further improve your club’s scouting knowledge in the areas of the world most beneficial to you!

How to understand Game Importance?

A nation’s Game Importance describes how important football is in that country relative to the population. It takes into account the football culture within each nation and the number of active members playing the sport. The game importance will also somehow link to the nation’s infrastructure, economy, and population which affects their overall abilities to produce great footballers.

Obviously, football is hugely important for Germany, compared to Canada where the national sport is ice hockey. Similarly, football is more important in Holland compared to Qatar which has no prior football history to talk about.

How to use the list of scouting regions to your benefit?

The result is those nations with a relatively huge population, high game importance, and excellent youth ratings will produce a higher average number of quality newgens. For instance, nations at the higher end of the scale will be more likely to produce players with higher reputation, better current and potential abilities compared to one at the lower end.

Regardless, it is not a definite matter that a nation on top of the list will constantly produce the best newgens, as each club’s reputation, youth facilities, Junior Coaching and youth recruitment will affect it as well. Then, the quality of the person in charge of handling youth intakes must be taken into account as well.

But by combining the knowledge of the best youth academies in Football Manager with the ‘best’ newgen nations you can prioritize your scouting activities to certain areas of the world. For instance, by focusing your attention on valuable nations to scout at, at the youth intake dates.

Complete list of the Worlds Scouting Regions

In each of the different scouting regions below, the nations are sorted from best to worst according to their youth rating. If nations have the same amount of stars, the better one will still be above the worse one.

Updated for Football Manager 2021.

South America (East)

Central Europe

UK & Ireland

Eastern Europe

North America

North Africa

South Europe

Scandinavia

South America West

Western Africa

East Asia

Middle East

Central Africa

Southern Africa

Southeast Asia

South Asia

Central America

Oceania

Caribbean

East Africa

Central Asia