11 Questions with Francisco Alonso Kegreiss

The pursuit of wisdom in any walk of life quickly reveals that what you think you know is not nearly enough to get you to where you want to go. As I'm starting out in my football scouting journey I challenged myself to reach out to those already working in various roles in football to answer a short list of questions. My goal wasn't to get answers but relevant perspectives on the game within the game.

Here is Francisco Alonso Kegreiss:

How did your first opportunity in football come about?

I have been a coach since I was 16 years old and after a bad experience I decided to change my career path into scouting as I really liked football and Football Manager. I found a scouting course online dictated Sports Management Worldwide and went for it. One of the assignments was to interview people of the industry, specially the ones that worked in roles I wanted to be in the future. I was able to generate good relationships with several people and was lucky to get a scouting consultant role with the Chicago Fire for Argentina. 

What attracted you to scouting/analytics? What’s more intriguing now names or numbers?

I have been a Football Manager fan since I bought the 01/02 edition. Playing that game, looking for players, creating rosters, selling players and all that was something I really enjoyed. As a coach I studied a lot how to develop talent so I thought I had an eye for certain things, I also liked to watch football games of any league of any country so that gave me knowledge that other people did not have only to the fact that I watched games and they did not. 

The analytics was something that the book Moneyball got me into. After reading that I decided to try and see ways to incorporate numbers into my recruitment process. That meant learning things I did not know before. It is a very nice challenge. 

I specialize in looking for players in the lower divisions of Argentina. There are no statistics of those leagues so I have to say names. 

What player or concept fascinates you? What caught your eye?

There is a lot of players that I really like so its hard to pick one. One concept that caught my eye is predictive analytics, trying to create models to predict performance based on numbers. That is a topic I am working on and trying to learn from other people about it. 

What is the biggest misconception you’ve found in this space?

That all people is bad. I had a lot of people tell me that this is a cutthroat industry but for me it has been good. I have encountered more good people than bad.

If you could start over what skill would you build on first?

It's a hard question really. I think that maybe, looking to the trends and what I do today, I would say programming. I am currently learning MySQL and in the future I would like to try Python or R but I do not think I have the skills for those. 

What is more important player development or recruitment? Why?

I believe both are important. Here in Argentina you need to have good player development as it is key to sell players for economic reasons. I think you need to have both to have a balanced team, having a first team roster where you can have academy players and experienced players tends to perform well. 

What is your favorite sports moment? Why?

I am an Athletic Club fan nowadays but when I was younger I followed Boca Juniors. One of my favourite moments was watching Boca defeat Real Madrid in Japan, I remember waking up really early and watch the game before school. 

What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?

Like I said before, I am an Athletic Club fan. I have been a Bielsista for a time and then when Marcelo signed for the basque team, I was over the moon. My goal is to be sports director in the future so I would say that my role models are Stuart Webber at Norwich City and Monchi at Sevilla. I picked these two as they represent 2 models on how to do things. 

What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into this space?

My advice would be to talk to people, share knowledge and opinions, look for feedback on your work and try to be better. It is an industry of relations so you need to nurture them. 

Who is your favorite athlete? Why?

I would say the Argentinian basketball player Emanuel Ginobli. I follow his career and watched every game I could of him during his time at San Antonio Spurs. He was a role model to me in terms on how to behave in the field and outside off it. I remember when he took a pay cut so the Spurs could have better players and retain Tim Duncan and Tony Parker. It was an example of Team before Me.

What is your favorite quote or saying?

If there is something you want to see in the world and it doesn´t exist, go out and make that thing. I can´t remember who said it but it is something that guides me in my work.