Finding good staff outside the top clubs

[ike2112]

I am wondering how best to find the best staff - coaches, scouts, assistant managers. People have pulled together videos of their top 10s, or espousing the qualities of Giorgos Pomaski...

But when I'm managing one of my favourite clubs - Dunfermline Athletic or Derby County, or some other mid-tier or lower side, it seems impossible to find anyone.

David Cross at Oldham, with 15 for Coaching Outfield, has been about the best option I could find.

But I wasn't sure if staff, like players, will rise and develop during the game and if there's known young gems to look out for?

[Redknapp69]

I just go to the player/staff search and filter on any scouts with more than "15" for example for judging player ability/potential etc

Same for Coaches for whatever value you are focusing on (i.e looking for 18+ for coaching goalkeepers etc if you wanted a goalie coach)

I also choose the "interested" box as well - this doesn't always mean some who are not interested will not join you but maybe makes things a little more realistic

[Alias47]

But I wasn't sure if staff, like players, will rise and develop during the game and if there's known young gems to look out for?

Yes, this can/will happen with staff also. There are staff who, like players, will have a low CA but high PA and their CA will rise over time towards their PA. I'm not sure if the values are the same exactly for staff but lots of young players have 0, -1 or -2 set as their PA which means that their ability will vary between saves. One save "player x" is brilliant then the next save they're not as good - this is why. The reason I'm banging on about it is that it is the same for young staff. You can have one save where "32 year old coach" is the best coach you can possibly hire, he will become one of the best coaches in the game, but on another save he's not so good. My point being it is difficult to say for sure "this young coach is awesome and will for sure have a high PA".

There's only one way I know of to be sure - and it is tedious! That would be to use the GK save game editor to look at the PA of various staff. You will find hidden gems like you would using CM Scout to find young players with high PA's, the difference being you have to search through GK Editor for each staff name individually...hey I did say it would be tedious! There is no staff searcher like there is player searcher, at least to my knowledge...

[Here2Win79]

I just filter by interested and hire the guys with the best numbers whilst keeping a balance of General, Fitness and Technical. For fitness coaches it’s always worthwhile to look at interested *scouts* to see if any have better coaching atts than the coaches - they will always take a coaching role and are normally cheaper as well. Prioritise coaching roles over scouting roles as scouts are ****ing useless anyway whilst coaches are necessary.
At that level if you think someone is good, sign them up immediately on a 10 year deal. That way you’ll get big compo for them if someone else tries to poach them.
If someone attempts to poach your staff and you want to keep them, offer them a new contract: they will often stay even though you are paying them less than the team who tried to steal them.
On the flip side, be utterly ruthless with your staff as you rise up the levels and look to trade them in for better by checking in on the interested staff a couple of times a year.
At the beginning of any .68 save Spencer Field, Rob Campkin (I think) and Dean Gripton will come to almost any club and can be your scouts forever. Look for them via staff search by name if you can’t see them in the interested list. Dean was actually credited as a researcher for the game but sadly doesn’t seem to have any ‘special powers’ as a result.
For a coach or ass man you can’t go wrong with Alan Irvine who has zero rep at the beginning so can be easily hired. I hired him at First Div St Mirren recently so he should defo come to Dunfermline. There’s an ancient French gk with great coaching stats who you just give a squad rotation player / coach deal to and wait for him to retire end of season 1 - again I hired him with St Mirren and I’ve brought him to Australia before so again he will go anywhere. Gerasimets is also normally a great coach and still useful as a player but he won’t get a uk work permit.
Worst comes to worst go into the non league teams of the country you are playing in and go through their staff; they may not show up on the interested list but many will come.

On a final note, staff attributes can improve but they can also go backwards. I find that staff who aren’t native to the country they are coaching in often lose 1-3 points off their coaching atts over a season. It tends to stabilise at this lower level, ie they don’t keep getting worse, but it is really annoying. I’ve never seen anyone have dramatic gains, at best an improvement of 1 point in each important attribute.

[ike2112]

I just go to the player/staff search and filter on any scouts with more than "15" for example for judging player ability/potential etc

Same for Coaches for whatever value you are focusing on (i.e looking for 18+ for coaching goalkeepers etc if you wanted a goalie coach)

I also choose the "interested" box as well - this doesn't always mean some who are not interested will not join you but maybe makes things a little more realistic

I do this - and get only 5 results and none of them are actually interested in accepting terms.

Instead I actually went through every single L1, L2 and Conf side until I found people listed as Coach with over 15 for outfield and offered them - and of those, only David Cross of Oldham accepted.

After a year it seems more appear in the lower leagues, some of the existing coaches stats seem to increase too so you can then find more. But that first season is terrible and I find my players just do not develop well as I don't have very good coaches and can't bring any good ones in either.

[Dermotron]

There seems to be a bug when the game starts for staff. I tried testing by adding a ton low PA, low rep staff and I think the amount available dropped instead of increasing

By the end of October there is generally enough available even at lower levels.

[ike2112]

There seems to be a bug when the game starts for staff. I tried testing by adding a ton low PA, low rep staff and I think the amount available dropped instead of increasing

By the end of October there is generally enough available even at lower levels.

I did a rather impractical test too - took a save game and fast-forwarded it through 6 months, 1 year, to the end of 2nd season and to May 3rd season.

What I found is that actually the staff attributes don't just gradually rise as the players do in a lifelike manner... they alter drastically overnight.

Gus Caesar at Hong Kong Rangers for example as a player-manager; stats are honking. 8 and 9 for coaching keepers and outfield, 6 and 10 for judging player ability and potential.
By year 3, he's 20/20/16/20 on those same stats. In fact stats-wise he's not far off the best in the game (yet Poor reputation, so I never was sure if that meant actually the stats didn't mean as much).
I thought maybe its a player-coach bug...

But Chris Smith of Aberystwyth, 5/9/11/9 becomes 14/19/20/19 right after the first 'updating game' in June 2002.

I'm wondering if its entirely random who has these sudden extreme rises, or if like Maxim and Cherno, its predictable...

[Garrincha]

Use CMExplorer (available in the Downloads section).

A lot of staff won´t be shown in 'Staff Search'. Open an uncompressed saved game in CMExplorer, choose 'staff' on your left, then filter the staff on the right. If I don't filter the results by role (physio, scout, etc), the program crashes (but I'm using wine on Linux).

Then you can sort the staff by current ability and you'll be sure to find some gems in lower rep. teams. Remember their names, write them down or take a screenshot and use 'Find Non-Player' in the game to offer them a contract.