Does Game Importance matter for a nation in Football Manager?

A nation with a high Game Importance, and a high Youth Rating tend to be the nations that produce the most talent in Football Manager.

So, you’ve reached the end of your first five-year cycle in Football Manager. You’ve achieved everything asked of you and more, and it’s all going very well indeed. The only problem that you face now, though, is the fact that you need to start building a second team. And with the way that Football Manager works, most of the real super talents of the world will be snapped up by major clubs in a year or two. So, this leaves you with chasing newly generated players, or ‘regens’.

This means scouting countries and being really thorough with where you look. One factor that matters a lot when looking to scout any nation, though, is the Game Importance stat. To see this, simply look at the General tab of a nation's profile and you can see what their love of football actually is. This is hugely important to think about!

Why? Because the Game Importance state is just as important as the hidden stat, Youth Rating. A country with a high Game Importance rating is very much likely to produce a greater standard, and a greater quantity, of footballers. And it makes sense – if football isn’t very big in a nation, why would they just start producing superstars out of nowhere?

A nation with a high population, a high Game Importance, and a high Youth Rating tend to be the nations that produce the most talent. These are ‘obvious’ nations such as Spain, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, and England. However, we recommend you look into some other nations below that can produce some very good regens in-game.

While not every crop is going to be stellar, we recommend you start scouting the following nations with high Game Importance in FM2020.

Good nations to scout with high Game Importance

So, the nations that we think you should definitely start looking to that you might not normally have focused on too much for regen talent include:

• Austria – A decent Youth Rating with a Very Important level of importance. Great for finding interesting players who are very cheap to invest in.
• Uruguay – Produces a ridiculous standard of regen for such a small nation, just like in real life. Football is massive here, so consistently produces big numbers.
• Scotland – Scotland seems to produce talent more in line with its 1970s and 80s heyday, with most saves seeing Scotland produce good numbers due to high Game Importance.
• Turkey – A growing football nation, it’s massively important to the country and produces a lot of stellar talent. Just expect to pay a bit more due to high Turkish domestic prices.
• Egypt – Regularly produces top talent, has a great Youth Rating, and often has a high standard of talent being produced each year.
• Senegal – A great place to look for exciting talent and often produces a lot of good footballers early on. Scout the domestic market to find some quality players for great prices.

Keep the above in mind, and you should have no problem at all in locating the kind of quality you were hoping to find when you first started playing. Shop outside the ‘big’ markets in the above, and you can find some really solid talent without having to break the bank.