Boots on the ground - the received wisdom of scouting

I took some heat on twitter last night after saying:

Now the key words here that some people seem to have missed are "scour countries looking for talent in person"

I want to look at the received wisdom that havings "boots on the ground" at an early stage is important in player scouting at the highest level.

Pool of talent

If you are Cambridge United there are probably literally thousands of players you could sign who would improve your first team. A lot of these players won't have their games televised. You, therefore, need a physical presence at games hoping to spot undiscovered talent. I'd still argue that the approach is far less efficient than investing in proper data scouting but that argument is for another blog.

The pool of players in any country who are good enough to play in the first team at Manchester United (snide jokes aside) is tiny. By the time players are ready to go into their first team, they are established internationals, or have played at least 30 top flight games.

That means there will be huge amounts of data and video available, they will also face lots of competition for these signatures.

Remember we are talking about in person scouting for talent identification. As my next tweet said "If the role is to act as persuader with the agents of up and coming stars then fair enough"

But as we'll see later that might just be pointless as well.

Talent ID at first team level

Given the reaction by some you would think that there is vast evidence of successful scouting into Champions League challenging teams. Obscure talents picked up by those trained eyes watching from the stands?

Let's look at who they actually play in their team and where they were recruited from.

Premier Leauge top 6 most picked XI

Manchester United

De Gea - Athletico Madrid 

Pogba - Juventus 

Lindelof - Benfica 

Shaw - Southampton 

Young - Villa 

Matic - Chelsea 

Rashford - Youth - Local

Lukaku - Everton 

Smalling - Fulham 

Lingard - Youth - Local

Martial - Monaco 

Manchester City

Ederson - Benfica

Laporte - Athletic Bilbao

Bernardo - Monaco

Walker - Tottenham

Sterling - Liverpool

Aguero - Athletico Madrid

Silva - Valencia

Fernandino - Shakhtar

Gundogan - Dortmund

Sané - Shalke

Stones - Everton

Liverpool

Alisson - Roma

Van Dijk - Southampton

Salah - Roma

Robertson - Hull

Mané - Southampton

Wijnaldum - Newcastle

Firmino - Hoffenheim

Alexander-Arnold - Youth - Local

Fabinho - Monaco

Henderson - Sunderland

Milner - Man City

Chelsea

Arrizabalaga - Athletic Bilbao

Azpilicueta - Marseille

Luiz - PSG

Jorginho - Napoil

Kanté - Leicester

Hazard - Lille

Rudiger - Roma

Alonso - Fiorentina

Willian - Anzhi

Pedro - Barcelona

Kovacic - Real Madrid

Arsenal

Leno - Leverkusen

Aubameyang - Dortmund

Mustafi - Valencia

Lacazette - Lyon

Xhaka - Gladbach

Torreira - Sampdoria

Sokratis - Dortmund

Guendouzi - Lorient

Iwobi - Youth - Local

Kolasinac - Schalke

Nacho Monreal - Malaga

Tottenham

Lloris - Lyon

Alderweireld - Southampton

Eriksen - Ajax

Kane - Youth - Local

Sissoko - Newcastle

Trippier - Burnley

Moura - PSG

Son - Leverkusen

Sanchez - Ajax

Vertonghen - Ajax

Davies - Swansea

So 66 players:

Domestic recruits: 19 all from top division 

Top 5 league recruits: 34 

Non- Top 5 league recruits but CL regulars: 7

European lower division: 1 

Youth: 5 all local  

Clubs do not field obscure talent unearthed at small clubs. All but 6 of the 66 players were either established players in the top flight of English football, regular players in a top 5 European league, or Champions League regulars with non-top 5 European clubs.

Guendouzi (Lorient £9m) and Pogba (Le Havre, then Juventus and purchased back from £100m) are the only examples of unearthed talent. But again I'd say Ligue 2 watchers were aware of Guendouzi as an 18-year-old putting up some of the best stats in the league. Same as we are aware of Alexis Claude Maurice and Julien Ponceau at the club now. The data and the video and the live scouting make Guendouzi our one success.

Yes, but what about all the youth recruitment? We need scouts at junior knockout tournaments. They don't make it. All the youth products playing regular minutes for the PL top 6 are local kids.  

Let us look at all players who played any league minutes for top 6 PL clubs last year. Now each club probably has bought in at least 4 players each from around the world (and that is probably a vast underestimate) so 6x4x10=240 players signed from academies all around the world. These are the best youth scouted prospects around taken from Barcelona, Ajax, Real Madrid and similar. How many played a single minute in the Premier League for the top 6 last season?

4.

Chong and Anders Pereria at Manchester United, Christensen at Chelsea and Bellerin at Arsenal.

Teams are scrambling to sign these players but they simply don't play for top 6 sides. The best arguments for doing it seem to be that you might find someone and that makes it all worthwhile. After all, maybe a 1 in 50 strike rate is OK if a PL player costs you £50m. I accept the economic argument but it still seems inefficient.

So actual talent ID for a top 6 PL team seems to involve picking well-established players from top 5 leagues for big money?

Does that require a full time, boots on the ground, approach to scouting?

How do signings work?

Who makes the final decision?

If (and it is still a big if) we believe that the only way to properly assess a player is by watching them regularly in live football matches then who does this?

Our local scout has watched 10 matches, compiled reports in each, looked at the video from every game and the data.

Does he get to make the decision? Not normally I suspect, the Chief Scout gets involved first, then passes it to the head of recruitment, then the manager. How many games must the final decision maker have watched live before a decision is made?

Do we disregard all the data, video and live scouting further down the decision process if the manager watches one game and says "nah"?

How far in advance is scouting done? Clubs like Liverpool claim they work at least 2 transfer windows ahead with a vast number of players monitored by data and video. The idea that at Champion's League level you need a full-time scout on the ground racing between games to try and identify new targets and monitor individuals already picked out match by match strikes me as crazy. 

Again the best argument for doing live viewing is "why not?". Clubs can afford it. Everyone (including me) likes to think they have a special eye for talent that data or video can't fully capture so why? 

Then consider the success rate of most multi-million pound signings who have been extensively scouted. Is the success rate highly correlated with who scouted them and how many times? 

It is all about the personality, you don't get that from stats or video

This is often given as the reason for significant amounts of in-person scouting, The stuff you can't see, is he a "talker", does his "head go down", does he have a firm handshake, does he look people in the eye, does he clap the supporters after the game, how does he conduct himself going on and off the team bus?

Again we are talking about signing for Manchester United level clubs here. 

What tells you more about a players personality:

What you observe in person for 90 minutes or so on a handful of occasions?

The fact they have made it all through youth football, into a top division and international squads and are regularly selected by their manager? 

Now if you are scouting for a lower league club and are considering someone kicked out of professional academies for poor timekeeping or violent altercations, you will need to consider their personality very carefully.

But then you'll need to remember people like Eric Cantona. Banned for months of his career for throwing balls at referees, clashes with authority and violent confrontations on and off the pitch. Oh and also the catalyst for Manchester United's dominance.

Or maybe the scout thinks Ozil is too laid back on the pitch. Does he even care? World cup winner and 5 times German international player of the year.

Gareth Bale manages to combine not socialising much with his teammates, showing no interest in football, and winning 4 Champions League finals.

There is no right or wrong personality for a footballer. Some players are much easier to manage than others but Ibrahimovic or Cantona have combined being difficult with winning lots of trophies.

Bale and others just want to go to work and get on with the job. He won't cause any problems but he won't give an inspirational speech.

Then we get onto the real issue. If clubs want to really know what a potential £30m player is like they talk to him and people around him! Agents, meetings, chats before contracts are signed.  No club is going to rely on a scout's psychological profile of a player based on observations on matchdays.  

The subtle, imperceptible movements only available to live viewers

Just a reminder, I did not say "don't scout live players just use data and video" 

Yes, watching a live game is the gold standard for scouting an individual player.

But what are we looking for? Is Jurgen Klopp going to have the same requirements of a fullback as Solksjaer? Is Mourinho going to want the same thing from a midfielder as Guardiola?  

You are relying on your scout having exactly the same view of the requirements for that player and position as your final decision maker (first team coach / DoF). 

Clearly, that can be done. It isn't easy but it is possible.

But again consider what we are talking about. That is employing a single live scout to watch live games and create meaningful reports. 

So as new chief French scout I am putting together my list, for centre backs with the potential to play for Manchester United. I pick out Kamara (Marseille), Saliba (St Etienne), Koundé (Bordeaux) and a few others. 

I perhaps manage to attend 10 games for each of these players over a season. Am I going to be able to make a coherent recommendation for which player to go for? The differences between players are very difficult to distinguish. In the work I've done in scouting we might come across 1 or 2 actions per hundred that separate a good from a great prospect. For some positions, it might take a full season of games to actually get a sufficient look at their all-round game to make any more than an educated guess. 

There are people with excellent talent spotting credentials. I consider David Moyes to be just about the best judge of centre backs around; Jagielka, Lescott, Stones, Distin (plus Dier, Mustafi, and Manolas picked out) etc. However, he also extensively scouted Per Koldrup spent £5m on him and sold him after 2 games as he looked terrible under high balls. Even the best can get it wrong.

So what value has that live viewing added over and above the full data sets and video I have access to? Again we are talking CL clubs buying players from top 5 euro leagues. Everyone knows these players, they are often experienced full or youth internationals. Look at the players the biggest clubs actually field each week.

All on pitch event data is already captured and viewable by clip or as a full match. At best I am going to see around 20% of their matches live. And that is just for a scouting list of about 6 players. I'm covering the whole country.

What measurable difference does the job make to which players the club ends up purchasing?

What difference does it make to the success rate of those signings if they have been scouted live in person once, or twenty times, and by whom?

Where scouting does work and where resources should be concentrated

My argument goes that for CL level clubs buying CL level players the benefits of live scouting are minimal. The player pool is small. The players are well assessed both for talent and personality already when they reach that level. The evidence shows that the players CL level teams play (in England) were all signed from other top-level clubs. There are not players signed directly from small clubs playing regularly for top English clubs in the Champions League. There are no players signed directly from other clubs youth academies playing regularly. 

All the players who actually play are seasoned players purchased at great cost or local players from the club's own youth systems.

Where in-person scouting does work is the tier below.

It is only by watching Barnsley U18s in action that you pick out John Stones or Sligo Rovers that you find Seamus Coleman. But neither was ready for a CL club straight away. They were both spotted by scouts and contacts, proper old fashioned scouting. Both needed the development at Everton.

Likewise, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard were spotted by local scouts, looking out for talented youngsters. The established local scouting networks work. The players that have developed at a club for years are the one's clubs actually field.

Clubs like Watford (through the Udinese Pozzo family) have an exceptional network of scouts through undervalued markets around the world. They will know every player showing promise in South America, and have local contacts ready to swoop as soon as possible. There is huge value in that.

Metz, RC Lens and Red Bull have networks of scouts in West Africa, finding the best talent and putting it through their partner academies in Senegal and Mali. This system works. 

Lower league clubs will have networks of scouts speculatively watching games every weekend. If they see Che Adams playing they make the call and he will be live scouted as soon as possible. Talent spotters know what they are doing, sometimes there is no data or video. This is how players are spotted and move up to the pro leagues.

There will always be a role for a well-trained eye to spot talent. 

But I hate the received wisdom that says boots on the ground is the right approach to international scouting at the elite level. 

No top 6 clubs are regularly playing prospects they have signed from abroad at U18 level. Yet they all purchase them in huge numbers.

No top 6 clubs are regularly fielding players who didn't already show up in data or on video as extremely promising players. Yet they still all appoint country-specific scouts.

In an era of limitless money perhaps the best argument is "why not?". I like due diligence on signings. I like scouting. I like talent spotting. I love the work smart clubs like Watford and Red Bull are doing. I see an important role for the old fashioned scout with an eye for a player. I think players should probably be seen live a few times before signing the cheque just to check on fitness.

But I also hate waste. I hate the received wisdom of "that is just the way it works, no club would do it differently". It just seems a bad use of resources to send someone looking around for more talent when you have squads of 70 professionals.

Sort out your player pathways.

How does a talented player get from being scouted by you onto the pitch? 

Why do so many of your transfers not come off? 

Everyone else does it that way doesn't mean it is the best way.