After having been in the business of professional Football for a number of years before that, I slowly started to realize that Scouting was the area of the game where I excelled the most and that I enjoyed doing most. The whole concept of discovering talent, building a squad with the right fit of players, looking for bargains around the world (low risk high reward) were some of the aspects that really attracted me.
Knowing what you know now, what is one piece of advice you would give to someone who wanted to scout football?
I would recommend being as meticulous as possible with the scouting work that is produced. Pay attention to every detail, always and in every aspect. Whether it be in the actual scouting act, in the work that is being delivered or in the way you interact with people. There are so many different things I could enumerate but this would end up in the size of a book. Never forget that networking is key to getting you opportunities but it's up to you to grab them when they come!
Which player are you proudest of spotting? Why?
First of all I would like to say that in today's Football it is very rare that one single person actually "discovers" a player. With the access to video and information in today's world, it becomes very rare that a given player is not seen by various people. What I would ask instead is, which player are you most proud of convincing someone about that has ended up having success? and there have been a few players that I have spotted throughout the years that have had success at the highest level. Now for the sake of answering the question, it would have to say Stephen Eustaquio, who really impressed me when playing in the third division of Portugal. It was on a tip from his family members that made me take a closer look at him. When I was convinced, I had to then convince his brother's agent to give Stephen a chance in the pro's. The agent listened to my advice, Stephen continued to progress and the rest is history.
Data and video scouting are important for scouting going forward. How do you balance the two with live scouting to identify prospects?
There is no doubt in my mind that the more access we have to information will help in the decision-making process and is always extremely valuable. Today we have an increasing number of data resources available and it's up to us to make good use of them in funneling our targets. Video scouting is an essentially cost saving tool that saves clubs astronomical amounts of time and money in their recruitment processes. In my opinion, video scouting does a large part of the initial work in terms of assessment but still leaves a percentage of the assessment to live scouting. Live scouting permits you to complete your assessment on the players that you have targeted and done a full data and video analysis on beforehand. There are intangibles that only a live analysis will allow you to assess.
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