11 Questions with @Scoutsourced

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 Scoutsourced:

How did your first opportunity in football come about?

My first opportunity in football was 15yo in USA for high school, and I was asked to run a middle school soccer team for 2 seasons. That got me started in coaching. More recently, I went out to Portugal where I got to work with Sporting/Benfica level coaches at Man Utd Soccer Schools, which led me to what I'm doing now, and how I am doing it.

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

Well I came at this from a coaching angle. Basically, if you used the numbers to coach your team, they ended up playing more like FC Barcelona, which I was trying to emulate anyway.

If I had to pick the most intriguing thing now it would be the lack of metrics available, as we can only use stats on the actions we can record enough of. So, given the disparity of what we can see and what we can measure, I don't denigrate eye-tests if there aren't any metrics to count a lot of the specific details and actions you see over and over again.

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

Scholes and Xavi' IQ when dropping deep to dictate the rhythm and direction of a game fascinated me. Brazil full backs at 94' WC were probably my 1st breakthrough, 'anything is possible now' in football moment.

As a concept in football, probably offensive cover for how varied, dynamic and interesting it can be for keeping possession, protecting against counters and being ready to counter-press.

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

One thing that kept coming up in the last Sloan Conference was something I have felt strongly about since coming in as a coach to analytics, and that is the coach-analyst gap.

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

Well if someone told me I would use maths and programming in football one day, I might have built that up in school more first.

What is more important player development or recruitment? Why?

I'd say player development, because if the most important part of a player is the brain, I don't quite know how you are going to get much of an idea about it from recruitment compared to being there with the kid's and getting to know them over time.

What is your favorite sports moment? Why?

Man Utd Champions League in Barcelona, as I'm from Stretford, Manchester. Then away from football, I was watching live when Jordan stole the ball from Malone, and hit that walk down-pull up winner with all the drama around his last game for the Bulls.

What coach/player/team inspires you? Why?

Hard to chose between Man Utd and Barca. Man Utd for being a local lad and Barca for football. Ajax always been up there.

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

Start ranking players maybe, I think that forces you to look at more information without realizing you are doing it.

Who is your favorite athlete? Why?

Messi. Just the best player in my favorite sport I guess.

What is your favorite quote or saying?

I am not sure really, I guess a good one that I think about with scouting is the tag line from popular game Civilization 'just one more turn' because I find it hard to stop.