Just wondering, has anybody done any research into the best countries to scout for players, such as which countries produce the best players, what the average number of players are with 170+ potential are in each nation etc.

I'd be very interested to find out more about this, just didn't want to go to all the effort of doing the research myself if somebody else has done it.

Also, what do people think the variables are? Is it a case of the success of the nations in a country and thus their ability to build top youth facilities or is it to do with reputations of the nations and the clubs? Or are some nations such as italy, spain, england, brazil etc always going to be producing the best players?

argentina/brazil are always where i start after the first season is done, but i usually scout region as opposed to single nations.