Signing New Players (via Scout Combinations)

If you want to sign a specific player, you will need a combination of scouts. You can get free ones, and you can also go to auctions to acquire the ones you’re missing.

All players will be level 1 - before PES 2020, this meant that you had to train them up to level 30 for them to achieve their default state, but now you get the player with his true potential immediately.

While you can get duplicate players via Agents, this is not the case with Scouts - which means that if you already have a player in your squad, you can't scout him again.

Free Scouts

After every game you play (or SIM), you will get a free 1, 2, 3 or 4-star Scout. The number of stars is important, because for a Gold Player you will need to combine 4-star Scouts (or mix a 5-star with a 4-star and a 3-star scout so that it averages 4 stars). For a Silver Ball, you can use 3-star Scouts. You can have up to 150 Scouts at any given time.

If you just try your luck with a single scout, you will have a very slim chance of getting a gold player, let alone the one you are looking for. You need to combine scouts to increase the likelihood of getting a certain player.

You can combine up to 3 scouts. Every time you add a new scout, you are basically narrowing down the list of players you can get.

As an example, let’s say you want to sign Nicolás Tagliafico (Gold Ball, 84 rated) to your team. You can combine 3 scouts ("Dutch League"/"LB"/"N/S American") and you will have a 50% chance of getting him.

Want 100%? You will either need to have the other possible player in your club already, or you will need to swap "Dutch League" for "Ajax" to narrow it down to 100%.

The thing is, for a specific club, you need to go to the Auctions House (the topic below). You can access PES DB to see the combinations you need for the players you want.

There are some players you can get by just combining 3 free scouts - Perisic, for instance, is the only player possible if you combine the following 4* scouts: "Other (Europe)"/"LMF"/"Ball Control".

According to PES DB, these are all the Gold Ball Players you can get with free scouts (100% chance) in PES 2021 (subject to change throughout the year with the Data Packs):

A. Candreva
Á. Correa
A. Florenzi
A. Harit
A. Morelos
A. Onana
B. Pavard
C. Bakambu
David Luiz
Douglas Costa
E. Zahavi
Emerson
F. Muslera
Filipe Luís
H. Çalhanoğlu
Hulk
I. Gueye
Illarramendi
J. Grealish
João Félix
João Pedro
Juan Bernat
L. Alario
L. Hrádecký
L. Klostermann
L. Martínez
L. Paredes
M. Acuña
M. Benatia
M. Ginter
M. Hamšík
M. Marega
M. Rashford
M. Ryan
Malcom
Marcelo
Nacho Monreal
Oscar
Paulinho
Pépé
Pizzi
R. Cabella
R. Guerreiro
Raúl García
S. Azmoun
S. El Shaarawy
S. Giovinco
S. Lulić
Sergi Roberto
V. Claesson
Vitolo
Y. Rakitskiy

For PES 2021, you can use this helpful spreadsheet to find out all the players you can sign for free (Bronze, Silver or Gold). Make sure you click on "File > Make a Copy" first.

The spreadsheet gives you the players you can scout after you introduce your scout inventory.

You will see that you have a number between 2 and 4 next to each possible scout (that's the number of the stars of the scout). As you add more and more scouts to the spreadsheet, unlocked players will become highlighted in green.

As an example, for M. Rashford, if you add "1" next to "English League 4*", "LWF 4*" and "Offensive Awareness 4*", he will become available.

Auctions House for specific Scouts

You don't get Nationality, Club, Skills or Style scouts from games, so you will have to come here at some point.

When you know which scout(s) you’re missing, you need to place a bid for them. I usually just add those scouts to my wishlist and bid whenever I notice those scouts are available.

You can place your final bid right away, meaning, you don’t have to sit and wait until the auction ends. You won’t know your competitors’ bids; the only stat you can rely on is the latest 5 bids for this exact scout, so it’s pretty much a gamble.

Keep in mind that you can’t use Coins for this mode - GP is the only allowed currency.

You’re buying these scouts directly from the game, not another user - you can actually sell scouts you own and won’t use, but the GP reward is very low, so I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re better off just getting a white ball and using it for SIMs, for example.

You may have noticed I have never mentioned 5-star scouts in the previous topic. That’s because 5-star scouts aren’t a free reward - if you want a Black Ball player, you will need to buy all 3 scouts in the Auctions House!

I would recommend you have a look at what you can get with 50%/33%/25% chance instead of spending so much GP to assure you get a 100% chance - this is known as clearing the scout pool.

Let's say you want a Gold Ball player, and you have 25% chance; the other 3 options are all White Balls. You can get those players first with cheap/free 1-star Scouts, and then the only player left will be the one you are looking for - a 25% chance becomes a 100% chance.