Very short video (1:30) taken from the longer TDS interview with Tony Lepore uploaded by J.R. Eskilson to his personal YouTube channel. Couple of interesting snippets gleaned: * US Soccer just activated its first Scandavian scout * Talent ID Dept. is currently tracking 240-250 players from U-14 to U-20 playing abroad
Quite a bit of chatter on soccer Twitter yesterday after Thomas Rongen's tweet about the U.S. only having one full-time scout. I was going to try to capture some of the conversations, but I don't think it's worth my time (or your time to read it.) I did want to share this graphic that Grant Wahl tweeted out (after receiving it from U.S. Soccer.) Here it is:
I just started reading the new issue of Howler (which is excellent, by the way; if you can, please subscribe to the magazine and support independent soccer media), and there's a fantastic little piece in there by the journalist Raul Vilchis entitled "Golden Gophers." It doesn't relate directly to scouting in the U.S., but I found it fascinating and it opens a window onto a rarely-seen aspect of football and prompted me to ask a question, which I will pose at the end of this post. The piece is about Manuel Viay, the head scout of Pachuca, and how the Pachuca academy is becoming the most productive in Mexico in producing players for the senior team. The piece quotes Viay a couple of times: "Our players are not from a specific area but come from all over the nation, regardless of their social status or family history...What we are looking for is good players." And this is the quote that blew my mind. Bear in mind that we are talking about a single club here: "We see 6,000 players a week, around 400 per scout [this means they have roughly 150 scouts]...By being aggressive and trying to cover the entire national territory, we open ourselves up to more opportunities to find players. If we go to places where others do not go, it is very possible that we will end up finding that different kind of player." So, my question is, "How does this compare to MLS? Are MLS teams scouting on anywhere near this level?" I don't really have any evidence to back me up, but my gut tells me that there's no way any MLS team is doing anywhere near this level of scouting of players. Anyway, take a look at the newest issue here.
I bet a lot of those scouts are volunteers that pass on info. Sounds like a smart way to do it and US Soccer could or maybe already doing something similar. Guess it depends on what you mean by a scout as in whether they are salaried or volunteers. If we are not doing it the make every willing coach anywhere in the country a scout. Let them send in info on players. Let a higher level volunteer check out those with the most nominations or best reports. Then the paid guys get info from the meddle level guys. Let all interested coaches all over the country be be and feel a part of the national team. BTW, all clubs would be wise to use their fans who coach in a similar way as it appears Pachuca is. Free info I'm guessing. Also if anyone shows real talent at picking out good players move them up a rung.
I bet you're exactly right re: most of the Pachuca scouts being volunteers. IIRC, that article I posted in the original post on this thread about Man City finding Phil Foden said that he was originally spotted by one of the team's volunteer scouts, just playing for his local neighborhood school. I really like your recommendations; very sensible and should be fairly easy to implement for clubs and country alike.
Ran across this interesting Twitter thread the other day, posted by @fitzcamel. He or she compared the concurrently run camps from 2012, the U14 team run by Hugo Perez and the U15 one run by current USSF Director of Talent Identification Tony Lepore. Here are the notables from each group: U15s: 956378699099787264 is not a valid tweet id and U14s: 956379874700283906 is not a valid tweet id The man running the later group was summarily fired, while the one running the former has been elevated to the highest position in talent ID in U.S. Soccer. Curious, no?
And these were some of the players not called in at all by Lepore during his time as U15 coach: 956747869179985920 is not a valid tweet id
Here are the full rosters for those 2002 camps, if anyone's interested: https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2014/03/17/12/41/u14-and-u15-bnts-to-convene-for-training-camp
Pulled from a good interview by Mike Woitalla of Schalke's Bodo Menze, over at Soccer America: Soccer America: Obviously, part of the success of Schalke graduating players to the first team from its youth program and its reserves is the club has attracted talented players. What's the key to identifying this talent? Menze: My observation is that Christian Heidel [Schalke's sporting director] has revolutionized the scouting system. I can't go into details because I can't give away club secrets. But I know the system. We have eyes on players all over the world. They can just as well be Americans, French or from whatever nations. In the end, it has to fit. Folks, we have a looooong way to go. Source: https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...es-bodo-menze-on-us-teens-in-germany-and.html
No. There are dedicated people in the system, but scouting is a numbers game. Especially in the US, you have to pick and choose what events you will cover, because games almost always fall on weekends, and you can only be in one place at a time. So much about scouting (and recruiting) is about your network. You end up relying on locals you trust telling you who to watch, what games to attend. If you have a mediocre network, you could very well end up at the pay-to-play tournament of the weekend, while Mexican teams have scouts there, and at a less organized event their contacts told you might have a kid worth seeing. This is where RSL and FC Dallas are ahead of the game. Both clubs have established extensive networks. RSL in UT and AZ, and FC Dallas in the Dallas metro area. But just think about the populations in those areas. The Dallas metro population is the 4th largest in the US. It has 2 million more people than Barcelona, and it is almost 10 times the square miles. Barcelona at any given time will have between 100-200 scouts and paid consultants who do extended scouting. And the networks beyond that count in the thousands of pretty well-informed people who can point those scouts toward any player anything close to special. To cover Dallas alone, my guess is you need at least 25 people scouting, and you need a wide local network beyond it. This is where MLS is still growing up.
With Earnie Stewart now in charge is the MNT program, I wonder if we’ll see any substantive changes to the scouting apparatus? Something to keep our eye on for sure.
Congratulations to FCUDA's Tommy Mihalic on his invitation to join the Croatian National Team Camp and Tournament this July & August! pic.twitter.com/MfuZXNSriB— FC United Academy (@FCUnitedDA) July 3, 2018 I post this here only because I see this as a failure of our scouting apparatus, unless of course Tommy just has his heart set on Croatia. If so, more power to him. But he plays for the DA club in USSF's backyard. He does look to be on the slight side. I wasn't able to find that he has been called up to any of our YNTs.
One other thing I'm still thinking about (and wanted to point out). The following quote was from an article posted to the US Soccer website on March 16th, 2017, almost a year and a half ago and I've seen nothing to suggest that this has been started. “The focus of the Talent Identification Department will be on improving the quality and quantity of scouts for U.S. Soccer and Development Academy clubs,” said Lepore. “Our plan is to implement a scout education program that will help Development Academy clubs to develop their strategy, methods, planning and networks for identifying players.”
Scouting is a pretty sore subject for me because I understand it is not an easy task. The problem I have is that they are not scouting everybody. I know there is limited resources, but when you only scout one group, you are getting the best of just that group and not the best of everybody. How about kids that can't afford to be in a pay to play club US Development Academy? Are they scouting those teams/games too? The solution is pretty easy and might be something that is already being worked on. You hire a group of scouts with experience and knowledge of teams not playing the DA system. I'm talking about scouting inner city leagues, Hispanic leagues, etc. Bring them in together and play against the "DA" academies. From here you can really find you the best players available.
Another question I have, what makes these guys scouts? Can they see talent or pontential? Can they see what the player can become or are they looking at just how pretty he looks now? When they review, have they seen their development increase in a time frame or just that he is good and continues to be good. Are these guys graded? Who grades him? His friend? Have they found talent that has actually become someone.
What you need to become a USSF scout: 1 - Identify Messi as having very low soccer IQ 2 - Say Jonathan Gonzalez, and players like him, are not big enough to play soccer
My wife many times will ask me, where are a pair of pants or shirt. I often respond, I don't know. 100% of the time the reason for that is: I didn't look.
Wanted to post these couple of snippets from Stewart's introductory interview for the US Soccer website. ussoccer.com: What do you plan to establish as the process for scouting to look for the next players for the MNT? ES: “First and foremost, it’s very important when we scout our players that we know exactly what they’re about. Creating a style and a culture where everybody understands their role and their responsibilities within the way we play is very important to getting results, whether at home or on the road. The scouting process means going to see these players, sit down with them, talk about their ambitions, their endeavors, and quite frankly, what they’re good in, what they’re not so good in and see if we can help in that regard.” ussoccer.com: How much will you be working with the Youth National Teams, their coaching staffs and their scouting staffs to make sure that all these things are integrated? ES: “If you want to create a culture together, you have to be at a table together and you need to be talking about that culture. You need to be talking about a style of play. The identification of these players, building a culture is something that you have to do together. It's not one person or two people. It's actually sitting down and having conversations with the coaches of the U.S. Youth National Teams. It's also making sure that we all identify what our culture is and then implement it every single day.”